BY Jeff Blumenthal of the Law Weekly
After nine years as managing partner of Reed Smith Shaw & McClay, Daniel Booker has decided not to seek reappointment, paving the way for fellow Pittsburgh-based partner Gregory Jordan to assume that mantle. And when the 41-year-old Jordan takes over in January, he will inherit a firm that will soon be re-christened Reed Smith, with Shaw and McClay being dropped as of next month.
Booker, 53, who was elected to three consecutive terms, informed his partners that he wanted to focus more on his antitrust litigation and trade regulation practice. During his tenure, the firm morphed from a Pittsburgh-dominated, 340-attorney firm to a firm with 600 lawyers spread almost evenly over three geographic regions – Western Pennsylvania, the Mid-Atlantic and Washington, D.C.
“I just concluded that I could be most valuable to the firm if I shed my administrative responsibilities and returned to my practice,” Booker said.
Jordan, who began his legal career with Reed Smith in 1984, was elected via secret ballot over another candidate whom the firm declined to name. He has spent the past six years on the firm’s management committee, currently serving as director of legal personnel and spending the three preceding years as director of practice development. In addition, he is head of the firm’s financial-services litigation practice group, also focusing on technology and media and First Amendment litigation.
“I really think [Jordan's election by the full partnership] is an expression of confidence in the direction in which we have been moving,” Philadelphia managing partner Michael Browne said. “He really worked closely with Dan on all of our major initiatives. And you really need someone with a lot of energy in that position, which at Greg’s age, he has.”
Following up on Reed Smith’s expansion into Northern Virginia, New York and New Jersey, Jordan said he plans to turn his attention to opening sites on the West Coast and in Europe, where the firm has been flirting with several London firms. He said that the firm also needs to continue expanding in existing sites such as its 110-lawyer Philadelphia office, where he sees technology-based practices assuming more prominence.
“I think we’re at a point where large firms like ours have to provide as many high-end services as we possibly can to our long-standing clients,” Jordan said. “We need to become more focused on the areas in which we’re strong, such as financial services, health care and technology, and carve a greater role for ourselves there nationally.”
Firm Branding
As for the name change, Jordan said dropping the names of firm founders George Elmer Shaw and Samuel McClay was not something that the firm took lightly. But marketing needs overrode century-old tradition in the end.
“We have been branding ourselves for a long time as Reed Smith, and that’s really how people know us,” Jordan said.
The official name change will take place Oct. 15, corresponding with the relaunch of Reed Smith’s Web site.
The Reed Smith name change comes on the heels of Philadelphia’s Dechert Price & Rhoads shortening its moniker to Dechert. Ward Bower, a principle at Altman Weil consultant firm, said such changes are representative of first-generation firm leaders being out of the picture.
“There’s a lot of psychology involved, especially if the person in question is still living,” Bower said. “Firms will often wait until someone is deceased so they don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
“All they are really doing is conforming the official firm name to common usage. A lot of firms, though, will just market themselves with a shortened version of their [official] name but keep the full name of the firm.”
Not every firm is in a hurry to shorten its name for branding purposes. Drinker Biddle & Reath chairman James Sweet said he believes the trend has evolved out of law firm managers feeling a need to be modern. While his firm is known in legal circles merely as “Drinker,” Sweet does not think the firm has to remove its remaining two names to market itself properly.
“Some genius might come around in two years or so and tell us that we need to do that, but right now I don’t see a reason to make a change,” Sweet said. “Just because we’re known as Drinker lawyers, it doesn’t mean we have to change the firm name. I don’t think it confuses anyone.”
