DC’s Fastest-Growing Firm

“Steptoe's Growth Spurt: Firm boosts its rank in D.C. by 10 percent over 2003,” an article by Christine Hines, published in the Legal Times on October 18, 2004, highlights Steptoe & Johnson LLP's recent expansion in the DC office.
 
A number of factors led to the DC office’s increase: “strategic hiring in specific practice areas; notable firm successes, which include significant court wins; standout stars that have kept the Steptoe name in the public eye; and some auspicious management decisions, such as targeting markets for expanding the firm.”

Managing Partner Roger Warin says the firm's focus on strengthening the litigation practice—long a core practice—and developing an intellectual property practice are part of the reason for the growth, as well as strengthening the insurance practice.

Currently, partners J. William Koegel, Jr., and Robert Jordan, III, are representing CACI International, the private defense contractor involved in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. In addition, partners Howard Stahl and Steven Davidson have been representing Motorola in a long-running fraud case relating to a $2 billion loan made to a wealthy Turkish family's mobile phone company. Last year, the firm was hired to serve as national counsel for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in asbestos cases around the country.

But the firm's highest-profile cases have emerged from its white-collar criminal defense practice. Steptoe's white-collar defense group has represented executives from the Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc., and the Rite Aid Corp. who are accused of fraud, grand larceny, conspiracy, and other crimes. Consequently, the white-collar group has contributed to some of the firm's well-publicized successes, turning some of its lawyers into near-celebrities, including partner Reid Weingarten, who this summer successfully represented Tyco International Ltd. General Counsel Mark Belnick, who was accused of grand larceny, securities fraud, and falsifying business records. Belnick was acquitted of all crimes in July.

Steptoe has also recruited several lawyers to supplement its intellectual property group, which features Charles Schill, the “dean of the 337 bar,” Harold Fox, and Will Pecau.

Schill's presence also adds to the already robust international trade practice. Headed by partner Susan Esserman, the trade practice, which includes exports, litigation at the ITC, and dispute resolution at the World Trade Organization, has grown to 50 lawyers in the District from 45 the previous year, close to 20 percent of the office's population. In addition, the recent acquisition of a seven-lawyer Brussels office has stimulated more business for the DC office, Esserman says.

For the future, the firm leaders plan more of the same, including adding to the litigation group and, especially, the IP group through lateral hiring and recruiting new associates. "What we've done with IP, we'd like to continue to do," Warin says. Along that line, according to the Legal Times 150 survey, the firm says it will hire more than 35 new associates.