Foley Hoag To Open New York City Office

Foley Hoag is opening an office in New York City, its fourth office worldwide, the firm is set to announce on Tuesday.

It has hired Peter Sullivan, the former co-chair of Hughes Hubbard and Reed’s patent practice, along with his colleague, Walter Egbert. At the same time, Daniel Schimmel joins the firm from Kelley Drye & Warren, where he served as co-chair of its international arbitration practice.

The firm will start off with a temporary Manhattan office at 1177 6th Avenue, but it is searching for a permanent midtown outpost to staff the three partners, their support staff and additional hires Foley Hoag will look to bring under its shingle in coming months.

In a saturated market for high-end legal services, Foley Hoag plans to differentiate itself in New York by selling its expertise to emerging technology companies that value flexible billing arrangements, the firm’s leaders said in an interview at their temporary space on Monday.

“There are more emerging technology companies in the New York metropolitan area, and this is an area of growth and one that we think is under-served by many traditional New York firms,” said Foleg Hoag Co-Managing Partner William Kolb.

Supported by city and state policies designed to invent a tech startup scene in the wake of the financial crisis, as well as a wave of investments from venture capitalists, New York has risen as a tech hub in recent years, with tax credits and funding benefiting companies from Buzzfeed to Vice Media to Etsy.

“There is an opportunity for us there,” said Kolb. “We have for decades been representing emerging companies.”

Foley Hoag itself is operating in an atmosphere reminiscent of a tech startup: It is using Regus office space until it finds its permanent quarters, and the office doesn’t have an official managing partner, or “partner-in-charge” – a person who is typically dedicated to overseeing business in a particular location.

Foley Hoag, founded in 1943, is known for representing a number of universities such as John Hopkins University and University of Massachusetts, life sciences and health care companies such as Biogen and Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, New York area clients such as analytics company Datadog, Inc., and various governments including Belgium and Venezuela.

The foreign aspect of Foley Hoag’s practice was a draw for Schimmel, the international arbitration partner, who said its Paris office will benefit his practice, since many of his clients are based in France and throughout other parts of Europe.

Foley Hoag opened in Paris in 2011 and has expanded to staff about 15 lawyers there. By comparison, it staffs about 190 lawyers in Boston, and 45 lawyers in Washington, D.C. To start, New York will be much smaller and the lawyers who are launching the new office come from larger firms, measured both by revenue and headcount, according to The American Lawyer.

Schimmel said that the smaller firm structure plays to Foley Hoag’s benefit: A number of his European clients “want more predictability in fees” and “you can offer more flexibility in billing arrangements if you’re a more nimble firm rather than one that has 30 offices abroad.”

Kolb said that the firm plans to expand the New York City office, but it hasn’t set a precise figure on how many attorneys it plans to staff.

“Instead, what we’ll do is what we’ve done with these three fantastic lawyers who fit within our practice areas: We’ll aggressively recruit them.”