Vedder Price Joins Big Law’s Miami Rush, as Firms Flock South

Vedder Price is opening a Miami office, joining a wave of Big Law firms headed for the city in recent months.

Kenneth Gerasimovich, a finance and transactions partner who joined Chicago-based Vedder Price last year, will move to Miami from New York to launch the office. The former Greenberg Traurig partner will be joined by a handful of other partners relocating to the new South Florida outpost, which the firm says will be “fully operational” on Thursday.

Miami has become a hot market for Big Law firms, luring the likes of Quinn Emanuel, Kirkland & Ellis, King & Spalding and Sidley Austin, among others. The influx of law firms and financial institutions—like Ken Griffin’s Chicago-based Citadel—has already led to a surge in asking rents and tightened the market for lateral partners in South Florida.

Vedder Price’s move will bring its lawyers closer to clients who’ve moved to Miami in recent years as well as clients it serves in Latin America for aircraft financing work, the firm said.

“Dozens of clients have already relocated to Miami or have established significant operational infrastructure in and around the city,” Vedder Price President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Nemeroff said in a statement.

Vedder Price is one of the country’s 200 largest firms, according to AmLaw data, collecting $272 million in revenue in 2021.

The firm said its Miami office will initially handle finance, M&A, private equity, and global transportation finance work, while expanding its capital markets footprint. Vedder Price is currently recruiting lawyers in Miami and looking to build practices in government investigations, commercial litigation and labor and employment. Its current office can house about 20 lawyers, a firm spokesman said.

Vedder Price corporate practice area leader Jennifer Durham King is among the lawyers relocating to Miami, the firm said. Global transportation finance shareholder Theresa Peyton and global transportation finance counsel Daniel Barlin are also making the move.

The firm’s new office will be at 600 Brickell Avenue, just down the street from 830 Brickell, a new tower that’s home to Sidley Austin and Winston & Strawn—two other Chicago-founded firms.