Earlier this month, Rider & Quesenberry announced that it had affiliated with Hall Estill, giving the Grand Junction law firm access to a deeper bench of legal expertise as Hall Estill puts a foot into the Western Slope legal market.
Founding partner Lloyd Quesenberry told Law Week that the affiliation gives Rider & Quesenberry the opportunity to take on more complex cases. He and Stephanie Rubinstein, the other active attorney at Rider & Quesenberry, operate as of counsel for Hall Estill through the affiliation.
“I have a general business corporate type practice, and we don’t have the depth of expertise that you can get from affiliating with a firm like Hall & Estill,” Quesenberry said. “There’s no patent lawyer, just as an example, we don’t have anybody who can do public securities work, which as companies grow up, they might want that.”
He also noted that his firm is a smaller one, and when it gets hit with a big case, it can be overwhelming.
“It’s nice to have this depth of not just expertise, but resources to rely on,” Quesenberry said. “I can’t possibly throw three attorneys and four paralegals at a problem that doesn’t exist. Whereas, if something big comes up, I have a bench to work from.”
Steve Ray, managing partner of Hall Estill, told Law Week that the firm really liked Rider & Quesenberry, and that they were sold on the understanding that the Western Slope is an underserved legal market.
“We were looking for something to complement our office and operation in Denver, and we thought we would give it a whirl,” Ray said.
He noted that if the right case popped up, the affiliation could go both ways, with Hall Estill sending work Rider & Quesenberry’s way.
Part of the reason for the affiliation came from the lack of attorneys in Grand Junction and the broader Western Slope. “You can pick any area of law that you want, and we are short of lawyers, good or not,” Quesenberry said.
Even though Grand Junction has the most lawyers out of the region, he said it was still underserved.
“You get just a little [farther away] from Grand Junction, and it is just very difficult to get in to see a lawyer,” Quesenberry said. “There’s many regions over here, where, it’s hard to believe, it’s more than an hour drive to get a lawyer.”
Quesenberry hopes that the affiliation will allow people to stay in Grand Junction for more of their legal needs, rather than having to make the long trek over the mountains to Denver, which is more than a four-hour drive.
“The more we heard, we thought it was a great fit for us too,” Ray said. “We’ve got expertise, we have a bench, we like to be busy, and we saw this as getting access to another market that we didn’t have.”
In addition to a wider range of practice areas, access to a bench with a broader range of state admissions was another important factor for the affiliation.
“The other thing that we don’t have over here, unlike a big city, is we don’t have people with licenses from all over,” Quesenberry said. “Already, I’ve been able to partner with Hall Estill, and, by partnering with another attorney within the firm, we’re working on a matter in Florida.”
Quesenberry noted that the affiliation allows the client to stay within one group, rather than liaising with someone they don’t know.
Ray said he was glad that the access Rider & Quesenberry has to Hall Estill’s capabilities is already paying off, as it was a factor in their affiliation negotiations.
Quesenberry added that since the affiliation was announced, he’s also seen more opportunities, and he said that the reaction from other firms has been unanimously in favor. “They would rather have more things done here, not have to travel to Denver as often,” Quesenberry said.
The name brand of a law firm has also grown in importance to some of Rider & Quesenberry’s clients as they’ve grown in size.
“Even though nothing bad happened, not that I couldn’t do the work; Hall Estill provides that name brand recognition to go out and compete with bigger and bigger markets and with bigger deals,” Quesenberry said.
While the affiliation is already operating, there is potential for growth within the partnership.
“Going as we are now, with Lloyd being an of counsel arrangement for now, [it’s] a great way to test the waters. Not only for us, but also for him to make sure that he thinks we’ve got the bench that can help him,” Ray said.
Quesenberry said that both sides were optimistic for the future of their partnership at this point, and that it could grow into more than an affiliation.
“I see this as an initial step to eventually Lloyd joining the firm like anybody else,” Ray said. “It’s an unusual arrangement with him being so far from any other office. We’re conservatively run, so we wanted to go a little slow, but everything seems to be working fine for now, and we’re excited. We look at it as a growth opportunity for the firm.”
There was also a lot of effort put into finding the right affiliation. Quesenberry told Law Week that it was more than a year-long process that involved interviews with a number of firms.
“I put a lot of effort into finding this, because I could see the need,” Quesenberry said. “Both just general service, but also to get my clients better service.”