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Legal Times

Davis Wright Tremaine, a Seattle-based law firm with about 420 attorneys, has announced it will merge with Washington, D.C-based Cole, Raywid & Braverman, a boutique firm with 35 lawyers who largely represent cable and telecommunications companies. Cole Raywid's attorneys will be folded into the larger firm's communications, media and technology law practice, boosting that group's number to 120. Davis Wright's now-25-attorney D.C. office will more than double in size.

Alexia Garamfalvi
Legal Times
11-29-2006

Davis Wright Tremaine, a Seattle-based law firm with about 420 attorneys, said Tuesday that it will merge with Washington, D.C-based Cole, Raywid & Braverman on Jan. 1.

In the merger, Davis Wright will acquire a boutique firm with 35 lawyers who largely represent cable and telecommunications companies.

Cole Raywid's attorneys will be folded into Davis Wright's communications, media and technology law practice, boosting that group's numbers to 120 nationwide.

Daniel Waggoner, the Davis Wright partner who chairs the practice, says attorneys from the firms have worked together on numerous matters for years and share a number of clients, including Discovery Communications Inc., Comcast Communications Corp., Charter Communications Inc. and T-Mobile.

"We periodically asked them if they were interested in doing something [a merger]," Waggoner says. Cole Raywid brushed off such advances until last April, when discussions about a possible merger began in earnest.

Davis Wright, a full-service firm with a heavy telecom and technology law focus, ranked 115 in The American Lawyer's latest Am Law 200 survey, with firmwide revenues of $186 million and profits per partner of $360,000.

Cole Raywid's revenues per lawyer and profits per partner are on par with Davis Wright's, says Cole Raywid senior partner Burt Braverman, although he declined to provide the firm's numbers, citing company policy.

The merger will create a 455-attorney firm under the Davis Wright Tremaine name, with offices in Seattle; Bellevue, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Anchorage, Alaska; New York; Washington, D.C.; and Shanghai.

Davis Wright was far from Cole Raywid's only suitor, according to Braverman.

"Our firm has been courted over and over again in the last four decades," Braverman says, "but we've never been interested."

Although the firm acknowledged that a merger was part of the range of possibilities it needed to consider in its strategic planning, it had yet to find a compelling partner.

"We liked our independence, and we knew it would take a unique fit to give it up," says Braverman.

Nonetheless, as the firms' clients grew, increasingly became national or international companies and sought more integrated legal services, he says, the firm thought that having access to a wider geographic platform and a broader range of practices could help it better serve its clients.

"Working environment and culture is very important to us," Braverman says, noting that the firm felt like it had a responsibility to its lawyers and staff members, some of whom had spent their entire careers with the firm.

For Davis Wright, the merger is a product of its ongoing search for growth opportunities, Waggoner says.

"We wanted to increase our overall presence and strength on the East Coast," says Richard Cys, a Davis Wright partner, currently in charge of the firm's D.C. office, who will oversee the merged D.C. office along with Steve Horvitz, currently Cole Raywid's managing partner.

The merger will more than double the size of Davis Wright's now 25-attorney D.C. office. Braverman says no decision has yet been made on whether the D.C. office will set up shop in Davis Wright's or Cole Raywid's current digs or whether they will need to find new office space.

"It's pretty unusual for a Pacific Northwest firm to have such a big presence on the East Coast," Waggoner says.

According to Legal Times' latest LT150 head-count survey, Seattle-based Perkins Coie had 36 attorneys in its D.C. office as of April 1, 2006, while Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, the D.C. office of Seattle-based Preston Gates & Ellis, had 70.

Preston Gates announced in September that it is in merger talks with Pittsburgh-based Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, which would bring its D.C. count to more than 200 attorneys.