National law firms have rushed into Chicago during the past decade, especially in the past three years, but many are finding now that their collective arrival is fueling intense competition to fill those offices with lawyers.
Leaders at many of the firms that have been in the city for years say they are still eager to snap up experienced lawyers or groups of attorneys to build the Chicago offices to their optimal size. Meanwhile, more firms keep flowing in, including the arrival earlier this year of Boston's Ropes & Gray, New York's Proskauer Rose and Indianapolis' Baker & Daniels.
"If you have more and more elite firms, then you're going to have more and more competition for a stable group of people," said Michael King, who is the managing partner of New York-based Dewey & LeBoeuf's Chicago office. "On the other hand, it also creates more of a market." Dewey opened its Chicago office in 2005 with five attorneys, before the firm's 2007 merger, and had grown to about 30 at one point, but is now at about 25.
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