Just this week Spencer Fane announced a merger with Holley Driggs, a full-service firm in Las Vegas, greatly expanding their Vegas offices and further solidifying their foothold in the Mountain West. We congratulate Spencer Fane and Holley Driggs on the deal, which we have been working on together for many months.
In the article after the announcement in the American Lawyer, Pat Whalen explained some of the synergies between firms that made the merger a success:
"It really is in close alignment with our growth and market entry in Utah, Arizona, and our recent entry into New Mexico," he said. "So the macroeconomic picture of that region further recommends our growth in Nevada."
He said Nevada also has tighter jurisdictional rules for out-of-state lawyers, so it makes sense to have litigators based in-state. Bankruptcy is one of the practices where there's strong alignment between the firms, he added, and while gaming isn't one of the top industries Spencer Fane serves, it's something Holley Driggs does and "something we hope will come together with this combination and accelerate our presence in the gaming industry."
Whalen also pointed to natural resources as an area that got even stronger with this and the previous combination with Montgomery & Andrews in Santa Fe. He said one of the downsides of the business and population growth in the West and Southwest in particular is the scarcity of water. But he thinks Spencer Fane is developing "one of the best water law teams in the country" to help people and businesses navigate disputes in that area.
"It becomes mission critical for a lot of businesses' growth aspirations in those markets, whether it's a real estate development, whether it's a [manufacturing] plant, water becomes a threshold issue. So it's really just the intersection of the growing demand, limited supply and immense complexity of those issues," he said.
Hayden Flowers, who quarterbacked the deal from the Compass Law side, said that he is excited about the future. "Holley Driggs is a great firm with phenomenal lawyers, and I'm excited to see what plugging into a national platform will do for their business in Vegas, and for the larger growth of the firm," he said. "Pat is always a pleasure to work with," he added, "and again and again I see lawyers respond when they hear and understand his vision for the firm."
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Compass Law Group is a recruiting firm that specializes in opening offices in new markets. Since 2018 we have opened 18 Am Law 200 offices across the country. If you would like to speak to someone about an office opening, feel free to contact us for a free consultation.