Tough Times Add to Shifting Legal Landscape : Partnerships: Six lawyers from big L.A. firm form smaller, specialized practice in Costa Mesa.

Theodor C. Albert and five other Orange County lawyers have defected from a major Los Angeles law firm to form their own partnership, joining the growing number of experienced lawyers who are fleeing large, established firms to set up smaller, specialized practices.

The new firm of Albert, Weiland & Golden in Costa Mesa will focus largely on insolvency and distressed real estate work.

Albert and Jeffrey Golden were partners in the Orange County office of Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger, which is based in Los Angeles. Michael Weiland also had been a partner at the Buchalter firm. Three Buchalter associates, Jennifer Golison, Evan Smiley and Lei Lei Wang-Ekvall joined the new firm as associates.

Law practice experts described the creation of the firm as part of a nationwide trend driven largely by tougher economic times for many corporate clients.

“Years ago, it was uncommon for a partner to leave an established firm,” said Joel A. Rose, a Cherry Hill, N.J., legal consultant who chairs an American Bar Assn. committee that studies large firm management practices.

Spinoffs are caused mostly by “a new attitude on the part of clients, who are interested in [cutting] billing rates,” Rose said. “That’s forcing [law] firms to make changes to cut overhead.”

In the process, he said, partners are quitting for any number of reasons, including more attractive opportunities and disagreements over pay and strategic direction of the firm.

Several Orange County law firms have broken apart in recent months.

The Irvine litigation firm of Callahan & Gauntlett, which is known for its intellectual property work, split up when co-founder David Gauntlett and two other members of the 20-lawyer firm left to form their own practice.

And Lobel, Winthrop & Broker, a well-respected Irvine bankruptcy firm disintegrated. Last fall, partner Jeffrey W. Broker founded the Broker & O’Keefe bankruptcy firm and, more recently, Marc J. Winthrop founded his own bankruptcy practice.

In each of the cases, the firms’ partners opted to create firms with specific strategic plans that differed, in some degree, from the old firm’s strategy.

Winthrop, for example, wanted to do more work with small- and medium-sized companies that need legal advice on how to handle debts. Lobel, however, opted to continue his longstanding practice of dealing with larger corporate clients.

Albert tied the creation of his new firm to Buchalter’s decision to return to its “traditional base of corporate clients.” Albert’s new firm will concentrate on debtor-oriented law, which he called “a good niche for us in Orange County.”

Broker welcomed the addition of another bankruptcy firm.

“They’re a good bunch of lawyers,” he said, “and it will be good to have another identified bankruptcy group out there for the public to use.”