The red-brick building that used to be the headquarters of the American Bag and Union Hide Co. in Oakland, California, has been converted into office space by two former Big Law partners shifting their career gears into boutique mode.

“It is a fun place to be,” said W. Fred Norton, a recent resident of the century-old building. “We are still near the courthouse here in Oakland, and we are still close to San Francisco. It has a lot of character.”

Norton once worked at Boies Schiller Flexner, where he spent more than 12 years, serving as a partner at the noted litigation firm from 2006 to 2012. During that time, he worked on notable matters for clients such as American Express Co., The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Oracle Corp., the latter of which he represented in a high-profile dispute with Google Inc.

In early 2013, Norton left Boies Schiller to become a vice president and deputy general counsel for litigation at SolarCity Corp. When the solar energy company announced a $2.6 billion all-stock merger in 2016 with fellow Elon Musk-owned Tesla Motors Inc., Norton became an associate general counsel for litigation at the electric car manufacturer.

Norton left Tesla last summer to set up The Norton Law Firm, which earlier this year welcomed aboard his former in-house colleague Gabrielle “Bree” Hann, a former partner at now-defunct Bingham McCutchen who most recently worked as an associate general counsel at Tesla after having previously served as an assistant general counsel for antitrust and litigation at SolarCity.

“It wasn't so much about wanting to leave Tesla,” Norton said. “I really missed being in the courtroom. I missed the day-to-day of litigation practice, which is very different from your experience as the lawyer in-house.”

Norton said he had always thought of starting his own firm. When he first met Hann back in 2010, when she part of a group of Bingham McCutchen lawyers in San Francisco that had teamed up with Boies Schiller to represent Oracle in a dispute with German software maker SAP SE, he knew he had someone who could help him get such a shop off the ground, even in a renovated warehouse.

“My first reaction to meeting her was this was somebody I can imagine starting a firm with,” Norton recalled.

A few years later, Norton and Hann both ended up at SolarCity, having transitioned from the Big Law world. Now they have reunited at Norton's new firm.

“I saw the opportunity to combine the complex litigation and trial experience that I had at a large firm with the business perspective I gained being at SolarCity and Tesla,” Norton said. “The combination of those things would allow me to a better lawyer, and do it more effectively than I have in the past.”

Norton said he and Hann's similar experience of working at large firms and technology companies makes their transition to a boutique practice easier, as both plan on continuing to work with Tesla and other former clients such as Oracle and San Francisco-based social media game developer Zynga Inc.

“In our experience at law firms and in-house, we have been on both the plaintiffs and defendants' side,” said Hann, adding that she and Norton will be able to offer that diverse perspective and skills as outside counsel to potential client companies.

Phuong Phillips, a former SolarCity and Tesla colleague who last year became chief legal officer at Zynga, said there is a growing interest for companies to work with boutiques even on more complex litigation matters. Zynga, of course, still gives work to plenty of large firms. But Phillips noted that she often prefers to work with smaller firms like Norton's because of the more intimate relationship she enjoys with its partners.

“It really depends what the case is, the cost associated with it and the fact that he is going to give it his all,” said Phillips about her preference in working with Norton's firm. “There is no bureaucracy of large law firms I have to deal with. I can work directly with him.”

Bay Area boutiques have been busy making headlines in 2018, and Norton and Hann are the latest partners from larger firms to jump into the smaller firm lateral market. Earlier this month, antitrust litigator David Goldstein left Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to join several former colleagues at now-defunct Heller Ehrman by becoming a name partner at San Francisco-based boutique Farmer Brownstein Jaeger & Goldstein.