#FF For Law Firm Names — Payne & Fears and Low Ball & Lynch

It’s Friday and in keeping with Twitter’s time-honored tradition, we’d like to take a moment to give a shout out — or an offline #FF of sorts — to those law firms that carry the quirkiest names.

The three law firms we list are in California — a state whose cities are known for a more laid back lifestyle.

In New York City, it’s much more of a suit and tie place, whereas you can stroll into a tech hub in Palo Alto in a t-shirt and jeans. And in Los Angeles, you might bring a set of swim shorts to work to eventually stroll off to the shores of Venice or Santa Monica.

It makes sense, then, that their lawyers might take a more casual approach to their law firm names.

At the San Francisco law firm Low Ball & Lynch, its managing shareholder Thomas LoSavio said the firm’s name brings him to the level of the people he represents: individual insurance carriers who have claims against them.

“It means, ‘There’s just folks here,’” said LoSavio.

LoSavio couldn’t help but draw another connection that he has worked into a sales pitch over the years: “You get in trouble, you call your insurance company, they appoint you a lawyer, and the lawyer... tries to get alow-ballsettlement.”

He said: “We try to live up to that portion of our name as well.”

Also in San Francisco, of course, is MoFo — or the nickname for the Big Law firm Morrison & Foerster, which its chair emeritus Keith Wetmore calls the greatest law firm name in America because “nobody forgets it.”

LoSavio pointed to MoFo as one of the big firms that was first to embrace its off-color nickname in the 1970s. ( Click here for a separate interview with Wetmore.)

Down in southern in California, there’s the law firm Payne & Fears, a dark, brooding name after the founding partners James Payne and Daniel Fears, civil litigators based in Irvine, California.

We reached out to Payne and Fears, but haven’t heard back. We’ll update this post if they do.

Know of any other firms with funky names? Feel free to shoot them to us at BigLawBusiness@bna.com.