Before Squire Sanders and Patton Boggs merged in June 2014, Patton Boggs had signed a 17-year lease extension and started renovating its longtime space at 2550 M. Now, that remodel includes integrating all of the Squire Sanders folks; the combined office will be around 225 lawyers. Currently, lawyers are split between Squire Sanders' old space on 19th Street and Patton Boggs' 2550 M office, which had another wave from 19th Street move in last week. We talked to DC managing partners Michael Nardotti (from legacy Patton Boggs) and John Burlingame (legacy Squire Sanders), about the firm's integration.
Mike, a retired Major General who spent 28 years with the military, has been overseeing the renovation. (We snapped him with a picture of West Point from the year he entered, 1965.) He tells us the office has renovated the floors, added more glass and natural light, switched to automated lighting, made heating and cooling systems more efficient, and increased office count by adding glass-fronted internal offices. The government investigations partner says this combination is great for associates and young partners who want to help establish the firm's direction for the future.
John tells us Squire Sanders is working to sublet its entire 1200 19th St office space, and should be moved out within the next few months. He and Mike are sharing management on personnel and administrative issues (eg, accounting systems and compensation), and John has a busy litigation practice. Meanwhile, he says, the combined firm is using Patton Boggs' presence in DC and public policy and exporting it onto the legacy Squire Sanders international platform.
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While the renovation goes on, lawyers are also traveling the globe: FCPA investigations in the Middle East, international dispute resolution in Croatia, a monitorship for a company with FCPA issues located in 128 countries, and deal work in the Middle East and London. There have been around 60 combined efforts. For instance, expanding the scope of Squire Sanders' IDR practice through Patton Boggs' policy contacts, merging the legacy firms' energy transactional and energy policy work, and expanding into public policy work and FDA work for legacy Squire Sanders clients.
In the recently finished lobby, we ran into former Sen. Trent Lott, who heads the renowned public policy practice with former Sen. John Breaux. The two senators always host post-election debriefings. The most recent was planned to be held in the lobby, which, several days beforehand, hadn't quite been finished. When Mike was asked about a backup, he answered--with a hint of his military roots--that Plan B was to make Plan A work. And it did.
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