Steptoe to Close Century City Office, Move Lawyers Downtown

Sometimes to take a step forward, you have to take a step back. Or so goes the rationale among Steptoe & Johnson leadership in the greater Los Angeles legal market.

The law firm is closing its Century City office and consolidating operations downtown, its Los Angeles managing partner Jason Levin told Big Law Business in an interview on Monday. Levin estimated that the offices will be merged, as he put it, before the July 4 weekend.

“We opened a Century City office about 10 years ago as a convenience for lawyers who live on the West Side of L.A.,” said Levin. “But with two campuses, it was difficult to get people together and interact. With our lease coming up for renewal, we thought it would be better to keep everyone at a single office.”

He said the Century City office lease, which takes up one floor at 2121 Avenue of the Stars, is set to expire in December of 2017, but that the transition of attorneys is starting now because “getting people together sooner rather than later is a good thing.”

“We are looking for a period of time in the next 60 days to make the transition with the minimal amount of disruption,” he said, of the two or three lawyers who will make the transition.

At its height, the office staffed around 38 lawyers in April 2012, according to the WayBack Machine, which shows archived website pages. This January, it staffed 10 lawyers, while today, that figure is around six, Levin said.

In early April, Jenner & Block announced that it had hired the latest round of partners from Steptoe : Michael McNamara, who joined Jenner as co-chair of the firm’s professional responsibility practice, and litigation partner Kristen Hicks Spira.

“It’s a combination of things,” said Levin of the Century City closing.

“There were some partner departures that were either independent of, or perhaps dependent on ongoing discussions of merging the two offices. The discussion of whether or not to have two offices is as old as the Century City office itself. There were clearly people who thought they wanted to stay on the West Side, in Century City, no matter what. Because of that, it might have accelerated the process. But the possibility had long been in our minds.”

So, who is staying and who is going?

Intellectual property partner Seong Hwan Kim has given notice that he won’t be moving to Steptoe’s downtown Los Angeles office. Instead, he’ll bring at least a pair of attorneys with him to a competitor, although he hasn’t officially announced which firm he’s joining.

Kim, who is a member of the Steptoe executive committee, did not respond to a request for comment.

Levin wished Kim well and acknowledged that he was a significant business generator at the firm, but he stressed that the consolidation in Los Angeles doesn’t mean Steptoe is de-emphasizing expansion in Southern California. Quite the contrary, actually.

“What I think more than anything this says is the need to bring attorneys together and not have us siloed in different offices and different groups,” he said. “I think keeping people together and feeding off each other fosters an atmosphere that creates greater growth and cost efficiency.”

The firm staffs 17 attorneys in Los Angeles altogether and will look to recruit in its core areas: toxic tort and environmental litigation, labor and employment, intellectual property and general commercial litigation, Levin said.

Levin did not have real estate space or cost savings figures to provide Big Law Business.