At 100, Beach law firm still hungry for growth

VIRGINIA BEACH

Some of Williams Mullen's 70 lawyers in Hampton Roads have been helping Tidewater Community College. Some have advised cancer patients on employment issues through the Legal Information Network for Cancer. Several others have spent time working with the Azalea Festival, Neptune Festival and Virginia Aquarium.

To mark the law firm's 100th anniversary, each of its 297 lawyers pledged to donate 100 hours of time this year to public service or pro-bono work.

The centennial festivities, however, probably will be subdued.

Like many firms that serve business clients, Williams Mullen must wrestle this year with a more demanding economic environment. The collapse in commercial real estate and falloff in mergers and acquisitions have depressed business demand for legal advice.

Compared with its peers, Richmond-based Williams Mullen posted respectable results in 2008. Its revenue rose 4.9 percent to $150 million, and the firm climbed five places to No. 159 in an annual ranking of law firms by revenue size in American Lawyer magazine. Many other midsize firms saw negligible growth or declines in revenue.

The economic stability of Williams Mullen's key markets, including Hampton Roads, Richmond and Raleigh, N.C., have enabled the firm to weather the downturn better than firms in larger metro areas, especially areas that depended heavily on financial activity, said Tom Frantz, Williams Mullen's president. Still, revenue growth will be more difficult to come by in 2009, he acknowledged.

The firm has responded to the heightened financial pressure by holding down costs. It took on fewer summer associates, or interns, this year: 30 compared with 50 last summer. In September, it will hire 18 associates, compared with about 30 last fall.

In contrast to the actions taken by several large firms, Williams Mullen hasn't resorted to layoffs or cuts in compensation. However, those steps can't be ruled out if economic conditions worsen, said Frantz, who is in the firm's Virginia Beach office.

At least one large firm with a presence in Hampton Roads, Atlanta-based Troutman Sanders, laid off employees this spring in response to economic conditions and a restructuring within the firm. The layoffs included partners, associates and staff members and took place in all 15 of Troutman Sanders' offices, including those in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, spokesman Mark Braykovich said. He declined to say how many employees were let go.

Williams Mullen, organized in 1909 by Lewis C. Williams and James Mullen, didn't move beyond Richmond until 1992, when it opened an office in Washington, D.C. The firm gained a presence in Hampton Roads a decade ago by merging with the Virginia Beach firm Clark & Stant and extended its reach to Norfolk and Portsmouth five years ago by merging with Hofheimer Nusbaum. In 2007 it moved into North Carolina by merging with a Raleigh firm, Maupin Taylor.

Today the firm has 650 employees in a dozen offices, including an office in London. A quarter of its employees are in Hampton Roads.

Despite the uncertain economy, Williams Mullen hasn't shelved its plans for expanding beyond the Virginia-Washington -North Carolina region. Its goal is to build a bigger presence in the Southeast by acquiring firms in Atlanta; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Nashville, Tenn., said Frantz, who is directing the expansion strategy with Williams Mullen's chairman and vice chairman.

"We would like to expand to one or two locations in the next five years," he said. "I'm bullish on our existing markets, and I'm bullish on the Southeast."

The pace of merger activity among law firms accelerated in the January-through-March quarter, according to the legal-industry consulting firm Hildebrandt. Thirty-three U.S. firms completed mergers or acquisitions during the quarter, compared with 22 in the year-earlier period and 23 in the first quarter of 2007, the unit of Thomson Reuters said in a report issued in May.

At a meeting in Williamsburg this month, Frantz and other firm leaders defined the tactics for Williams Mullen's expansion and assigned specific responsibilities.

However, a weak economy makes the merger process more complicated because it requires spending more time examining a merger candidate's financial condition and the condition of its clients, said Frantz, who is a certified public accountant and a lawyer.

Earlier this year, Williams Mullen expanded its Washington lobbying arm by adding an established lobbying firm with property-and-casualty insurers and several labor unions among its clients. Since the alliance in February, the Keelen Group has helped Williams Mullen assist some of its auto-dealer clients and some clients seeking federal stimulus funds, Frantz said.

The firm's Washington operations will be particularly important, he said, because of the Obama administration's push for major legislative changes in health care coverage and financial regulation, two areas of particular interest to Williams Mullen.

Tom Shean, (757) 446-2379, tom.shean@pilotonline.com