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The following article was posted on the "other" Ohio Board. I have not verified the accuracy of the post:

'New' firm will be ninth largest in city, Bailey Cavalieri officials say

Daily Reporter
07/11/2003

In a time of ever-increasing unemployment rates, it could prove devastating for professionals to hear of their employer's dissolution. But for 45 attorneys, most working in downtown Columbus, the presented lemons elicited a response that would make Forrest Gump proud.

On July 16, the former attorneys for the Columbus office of Arter & Hadden LLP will open Bailey Cavalieri LLC at the One Columbus Building on West Broad Street. The "new" firm will employ 45 attorneys and 35 administrative staff members, making it one of the 10 largest in the city, according to company officials.

Arter & Hadden announced recently that the firm, which traced its roots back more than a century and a half, would dissolve. The news was less than shocking for firm insiders, as evidenced by the formation, within one week of the announcement, of a new law firm.

"We were informally making plans," said Michael Mahoney, managing partner of Bailey Cavalieri, a position he held for the Columbus office of Arter & Hadden until recently.

Already, Bailey & Cavalieri count Provident Bank, Abercrombie & Fitch and Mt. Carmel Hospital as select clients, and Mahoney said most of Arter & Hadden's local clients would stay with the new firm.

"Our clients told us they hire lawyers, not law firms," Mahoney said.

While leaving behind colleagues from Arter & Hadden's old offices throughout the country, Mahoney said the firm should find it new name, and the control that comes with it, welcome.

"We are completely in control of our own destiny," he said.

The firm took its name from two principals, Dan Bailey and Nick Cavalieri, a former Columbus Bar Association president. In addition to Bailey, Cavalieri and Mahoney, Dan Cvetanovich and James Ryan will serve the management committee.

In addition to competing with large Columbus firms for clients, Mahoney said the new firm would be able to compete for the area's top law school graduates each year due to the local control.

"We have been reluctant recruiters," he said, pointing to the financial troubles Arter & Hadden had experienced in the year leading up to dissolution.

While the firm also will count the former Dayton office of Arter & Hadden as part of Bailey Cavalieri, Mahoney said no plans exist for a larger expansion anytime soon.

"We always worked closely with the Dayton office," he said, adding that while profitable, the small Dayton office could not exist as a freestanding law firm.

Before the firm considers any new markets, which Mahoney said was not on anybody's radar screen, the firm will embark on a branding campaign.

"Obviously, Arter & Hadden was branded for around 160 years or something," he said of the firm founded in 1843.

But the firm, with offices in Washington, D.C., Dallas and throughout California, in addition to the three Ohio locations, will close for business July 15, after a recent vote by partners to dissolve. Firm officials cited overhead and unfavorable rent agreements as leading to the decision to disband.

But Mahoney laughed when asked if previous experience would dissuade officials at the new firm from expanding. "We need to get our feet on the ground," he said.

The day after Arter & Hadden closes shop, Bailey Cavalieri plans to be there, in the same downtown offices.

"We are really happy we are all staying together," Mahoney said.


aV