Ballard in CA, Competitor's MP at Helm
Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll is opening an office in Los Angeles with the expectation that it will help the 500-lawyer Philadelphia-based law firm strengthen its flagship real estate and resort practice in the Southwest.
In charge of the new office will be David C. Sampson, former managing partner of the Los Angeles office of Baker Hostetler, the Ballard firm reports in a press release today. Other key members of the Los Angeles team are Scott A. Preston, a partner, and Letvia M. Arza-Goderich and Devon K. McGranahan, both counsel, all three of whom have real estate and resort development practices focused on Southern California, Mexico and the Caribbean, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer and the press release.
The firm hopes to add up to 10 more lawyers in Los Angeles soon, reports the Inquirer.
The Los Angeles move follows recent expansion by Ballard Spahr into Las Vegas and Phoenix—an office which, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, has been growing rapidly. Resort work, which focuses on land-use issues, financing, and structuring time-share and other fractional ownership arrangements, has been very strong there, according to Arthur Makadon, Ballard Spahr’s chairman. Besides Los Angeles and Phoenix, the firm also has western offices in Denver, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.
“We have a terrific resorts practice in our Southwestern offices now, and the new people also have a terrific resorts practice, which reaches way into Latin America,” Makadon tells the Inquirer. Now, with the addition of the new Los Angeles office, “This would be adding strength to strength and probably gives us one of the top resorts practices in the country,” he says.
