BUSINESS AND LAW
The Costa Mesa branch of Morrison & Foerster, a 340-attorney San Francisco law firm, opened Monday with lawyers and support staff members who defected from the Orange County office of a Los Angeles firm.
Morrison & Foerster’s move to Orange County, announced in December, follows the pattern of other big-city powerhouses that have opened branches to take advantage of the abundant corporate and real estate business here.
The office will be headed by five former partners who ran the county office of McKenna, Conner & Cuneo, a Los Angeles firm that specializes in banking law.
In addition, 20 other lawyers, three paralegals and about three dozen administrative support staff from McKenna’s local operation have switched to Morrison & Foerster, said Ronald J. DeFelice, a managing partner of the new office.
One lawyer, James Parker, will remain with McKenna at a nearby location, and another is leaving the practice of law, said Michael McAndrews, a managing partner of the 250-lawyer McKenna firm.
McAndrews said McKenna will rebuild its Orange County presence over the next few months. Meanwhile, the firm will bring to Orange County a number of its Los Angeles lawyers to “handle a substantial amount of corporate and litigation work there.”
The 105-year-old Morrison & Foerster is the sixth-largest law firm in the state and the 36th largest in the nation, according to a survey published in September by the National Law Journal, a trade publication.
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