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Henry Gottlieb

New Jersey Law Journal

01-15-2008

Steven Picco, a leading environmental lawyer in New Jersey for 25 years, is heading a five-lawyer defection from the Princeton, N.J., office of international giant Reed Smith to the cozier confines of 250-lawyer regional firm Saul Ewing.

The move brings to 15 the number of lawyers in Saul Ewing's Princeton office and is part of the firm's goal of increasing the size of its New Jersey operations, it announced Monday. There is also a nine-lawyer office in Newark.

Joining Picco are environmental lawyers Andrea Lipuma, Tom Burns and Cristina Stummer and insurance lawyer Paige Berry.

The move ends Picco's decade with Reed Smith, which had 380 lawyers and the ambition to have many more when he joined in 1997 during a wave of migration to out-of-state firms by homegrown New Jersey lawyers.

Now, with 1,500 lawyers and the global presence it sought, Reed Smith doesn't feel a need to devote resources to building practice areas, like environmental law, that don't generate huge profit margins, he says.

"Reed Smith has a detailed strategic plan to be a global player and that's fair," Picco says. "They want to concentrate on big margin practices." International finance and mergers and acquisitions are among them, he says.

Billing rates at firms like Reed Smith are often more than clients want to pay for environmental work, he says.

Picco says Saul Ewing, being smaller, is a better fit for his practice, representing companies, public bodies and industry associations in environmental litigation, transactions and regulations.

Picco is a former assistant commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Energy. He represents the New Jersey Chemistry Council and other trade organizations, public utilities and a number of large petrochemical, oil and pipeline companies.

He says he talked to lawyers at eight or nine firms before choosing Saul Ewing and looks forward to helping the firm expand its Princeton office and its environmental practice. Lupima and Berry are partners, Burns is special counsel and Stummer is an associate.

Lawyers in the environmental, litigation and real estate fields dominate the office, and would like to concentrate on bringing in lawyers in those fields, managing partner David Antzis says.

"We're looking to grow strategically," he says. "If there were some domestic relations lawyer in some firm that wanted to join us I'd say no."

"But yes to someone in real estate, litigation or environmental -- the fields we have there," he says. "We're also looking to add to our business group."

"We're looking for smart, experienced good lawyers in those fields," he says.

Antzis says Pamela Goodwin, an environmental lawyer in the Princeton office, suggested to Picco over the years that he come to the firm. "But I don't think the time was ripe then, but lucky for us the timing turned out to be ripe when she approached him this fall," Antzis says.

"I think as Reed Smith became a global firm Steve felt they lost some interest in New Jersey," Antzis says.

He says firms that have a worldwide presence tend to have higher billing rates, and "Steve felt it was making it hard for him to retain some of his clients because they couldn't sustain the rates."

Patrick Bradley, who manages Reed Smith's Princeton office, says it's wrong to say the firm isn't interested in having a strong environmental practice or a substantial New Jersey presence.

The Princeton office still has about 50 lawyers, he says. "Clearly Reed Smith has a very active environmental and energy practice and we will continue to do that."

"Having said that, I can also understand his position: to go to a more local, regional, firm in connection with his practice," Bradley says. "I don't think the two things are distinct, but I would disagree with the suggestion that Reed Smith is not interested in an environmental practice."

The head of the firm's environmental practice is Louis Naugle in Pittsburgh and there are energy lawyers in the Princeton office, "but Steve was the environmental practice" in that office, Bradley says.