Central Pennsylvania-based Saxton & Stump has brought on another lawyer from the firm it originally spun off from, Stevens & Lee.

M&A lawyer John Hogan is now a shareholder at Saxton & Stump and chair of its corporate health care and life sciences group. The move reunites him with a number of colleagues he worked with at Stevens & Lee before they left to form Saxton & Stump in 2015.

Hogan has worked with health care practices and businesses in a number of states across the country, representing them in transactions and advising them on state-specific regulations related to those mergers and acquisitions.

“Bringing him in extends our continued expansion into the business area,” Saxton & Stump CEO James Saxton said, noting that M&A “continues to be red-hot.”

Saxton said he practiced alongside Hogan for about 20 years at Stevens & Lee. He declined to name clients of Hogan, as it is too early to know which ones will be moving their work. But he said there aren't many existing Saxton & Stump clients on Hogan's client roster, which “makes it all the more exciting.”

Hogan was not available to comment on his move Thursday.

“In talking with him, he knows we're doing a lot of innovative things in the health care space,” Saxton said. And “the thought of working with a multidisciplinary team … that was exciting to him.”

Saxton & Stump added a number of lawyers in 2018, and Saxton said that will continue.

It brought on business and corporate law shareholder Katherine Pandelidis Granbois from McNees Wallace & Nurick in January of last year. Also that month, it hired Lancaster shareholder Scott Alan Mitchell to lead a new estate planning practice and brought on a senior medical consultant.

Later in 2018, the firm added an intellectual property practice when it hired a shareholder from McNees Wallace and a senior counsel who came from an in-house position. Those IP lawyers, Bruce Wolstoncroft and Helen Odar Wolstoncroft, happen to be married.

And in September, retired U.S. District Chief Judge Lawrence F. Stengel of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania joined Saxton & Stump to head up its internal investigations practice. Stengel has already been engaged for several high-profile investigations, Saxton said.

“We're looking to bring in laterals that have leadership skills [and] mature practices,” Saxton said. “We will continue to grow in Pennsylvania and grow our national platform in certain niches.”

The practices with clients outside Pennsylvania include IP, investigations, employment and health care, he said.

The 34-lawyer firm, which also has a sizable staff of medical consultants, has plans to add six to eight more lawyers in 2019, Saxton said. The Malvern office, which opened last spring, is expected to double in size throughout this year, while the Harrisburg office will more than double and the Lancaster office will grow by about 30 percent, he said.

Saxton noted that the firm is also focused on its own business operations, and has hired several accountants and four software engineers.

“Although health care is in our DNA, part of the strategic plan is to diversify,” Saxton said, noting that every quarter, health care-related work accounts for less of the firm's total revenue.

Saxton said his firm still works with Stevens & Lee “very collaboratively in multiple ways,” including sharing clients. “I have a lot of good friends there still,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Stevens & Lee did not respond to a request for comment on Hogan's departure.

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