With the renewed perkiness of Silicon Valley, out-of-town law firms are moving in and existing ones are bulking up — but the English don’t seem to care.
Three years after shutting down its other three California offices, U.K.-based global giant Clifford Chance is closing up shop in Silicon Valley.
Office Managing Partner Daniel Harris, who held down the fort for some time as the only Clifford Chance partner in the Golden State, will be relocating permanently to the firm’s Washington, D.C., office come May.
“For all of us concerned, it made more sense to do it this way,” said Harris, who heads the firm’s global intellectual property group. “At some point, waking up for 6 a.m. conference calls gets kind of old.”
The British firm first came to California in 2002 with high hopes and a bunch of lawyers from the now-defunct Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, among them Harris and notorious Brobeck chief Tower Snow. But two years later, showing little growth, the firm shuttered its San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego outposts, with the new-law-office smell still in the air.
Harris said the Silicon Valley office officially closed about a month ago. He’s currently in transition, splitting time between D.C. and a temporary office here. Even after he’s gone, Harris emphasized that the firm will continue to serve its California clients. He noted that the firm tends to serve larger clients, not the kind of Valley startups and emerging companies that require more local attention.
“In the practice of law, it doesn’t matter where you’re sitting,” he said.
— Zusha Elinson
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