McNees Wallace & Nurick has added to its lobbying capabilities with its second subsidiary acquisition this year.

The Harrisburg-based firm has acquired The Winter Group, a lobbying firm with Pennsylvania roots, founded by a former lieutenant governor. As part of the deal, McNees is gaining three new professionals. The lobbying business will operate as a subsidiary to the law firm, as McNees-Winter Group LLC.

Winter Group founder Mark Singel, who established the firm in 2005, has vacated his position as president, the firm said, but he will serve as a consultant to the McNees-Winter Group and its clients.

McNees chairman David Kleppinger said Singel was contemplating a transition toward retirement and reached out to him after McNees acquired Capital Associates in February, adding five lobbyists in Harrisburg. In his consulting capacity, Singel will be assisting with Winter's integration with McNees, Kleppinger said.

Now part of McNees are Winter Group senior partner Peg Callahan-Kuskin, senior associate Angie Armbrust and associate Natalie Cook.

Kuskin was involved with enacting legislation that requires vaccinations for college students and seniors, as well as scope of practice legislation for health care professional groups. Armbrust works with legislative and administrative officials in health care policy, economic development and tax policies, transportation and procurement, and was previously the managing director of the Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists. Cook focuses her work on the Pennsylvania General Assembly, tracking legislative developments to update clients.

Kleppinger said their addition makes McNees' government relations business more bipartisan than it had been previously, given Singel's connections to the Democratic party, and said the firm will benefit from Singel's roots in Western Pennsylvania.

“Clearly the Republicans have controlled both houses for a while. That's likely not to continue forever,” Kleppinger said.

The Winter Group's clients include retail, hospitality and gaming, manufacturing, technology, energy, nonprofits and health care entities. The group has a number of clients in common with McNees, Kleppinger said, and did not encounter any conflicts in preparing for the acquisition.

McNees now has 20 professionals providing government relations and nonprofit services. The 130-lawyer firm has three other subsidiaries: Community Networking Resources LLC, Mid-Atlantic Strategic Solutions, and Capital Associates LLC, which focus on government relations, and Helix LLC, which works with nonprofit entities.

Kleppinger said McNees has preserved those names within its government relations practice because they were well known within certain political circles. But over time, he said, they will likely “fade away.”

Considering the rapid-fire addition of two lobbying practices, Kleppinger said the firm will now pause for six to eight months to integrate before expanding further in that portion of the firm's business.

These kinds of acquisitions have come about as government relations firms encounter client demands for “a broader scope of services and a broader scope of relationships,” Kleppinger said. At the same time, small lobbying firms, like small law firms, are looking at baby boomers retiring from their leadership roles, and merging with a larger firm allows them to offer clients a greater number of potential successor relationships and find the right fit, Kleppinger said.

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