The 50 Largest Law Firms in Minnesota 2007

The results are in and, for the third year in a row, Faegre & Benson employs more lawyers than any other firm in Minnesota. With the collapse of Rider Bennett, Winthrop & Weinstine crept into the top 10 for the first time. And surveys confirmed once again that the law is a good place to be. Starting salaries at all top 10 firms increased by $15,000 from last year to an annual $120,000. Merchant & Gould tops that category, with a starting salary of $140,000.

Take a look at the chart to draw your own conclusions. For more information about the Top 50 firms, and for survey results from public employers of lawyers, visit our Web site.

Rank Name, Total MN Lawyers, Number of Partners/Shareholders, Total 2007 Hires in MN, 2007 Lateral Hires in MN, Starting Salary for a New Associate

1. Faegre & Benson LLP 340 172 58 31 $120,000
2. Dorsey & Whitney LLP 313 129 30 7 $120,000
3. Fredrikson & Byron, PA 222 125 28 7 $120,000
4. Leonard, Street and Deinard 203 117 16 7 $120,000
5. Briggs and Morgan, PA 176 110 23 14 $120,000
6. Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP 174 65 25 9 $120,000
7. Lindquist & Vennum 166 113 27 19 $120,000
8. Gray Plant Mooty 157 107 15 12 $120,000
9. Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly LLP 109 57 12 3 $120,000
10. Winthrop & Weinstine, PA 89 53 8 9 $120,000
11. Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, LLP 88 48 11 6 $115,000
12. Moss & Barnett, A Professional Association 73 49 8 6 NA
13. Larkin Hoffman Daly & Lindgren, Ltd. 71 43 2 2 $100,000
13. Meagher & Geer, PLLP 71 36 2 0 NA
15. Merchant & Gould PC 68 24 4 1 $140,000
16. Best & Flanagan LLP 58 41 4 4 NA
17. Felhaber Larson Fenlon & Vogt, PA 56 39 2 2 $95,000
18. Halleland Lewis Nilan & Johnson 55 33 9 6 $95,000
19. Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner PA 49 13 4 1 NA
20. Bassford Remele 46 32 12 11 NA
21. Fish & Richardson PC 45 16 10 1 NA
21. Messerli & Kramer PA 45 23 5 2 NA
23. Foley & Mansfield PLLP 41 19 5 0 NA
24. Arthur, Chapman, Kettering, Smetak & Pikala PA 40 17 6 4 NA
25. Bowman and Brooke LLP 39 22 2 0 $100,000
26. Gislason & Hunter LLP 38 19 2 0 NA
26. Kennedy & Graven, Chartered 38 24 3 2 NA
28. Fabyanske, Westra, Hart & Thomson, PA 36 20 4 2 $100,000
29. Barna, Guzy & Steffen, Ltd. 34 21 2 1 NA
29. Lommen, Abdo, Cole, King, Stageberg, PA 34 26 4 4 NA
31. Cousineau McGuire, Chartered 33 15 5 5 NA
32. Henson & Efron, PA 32 18 1 1 NA
32. Larson King, LLP 32 17 3 1 $95,000
32. Murnane Brandt 32 13 2 2 NA
35. Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP 31 20 9 9 NA
35. Johnson & Condon, PA 31 11 2 0 NA
35. Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP 31 18 4 NA NA
38. Patterson, Thuente, Skaar & Christensen, PA 30 7 2 2 NA
38. Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason & Gette LLP 30 18 1 1 NA
40. Hellmuth & Johnson PLLC 29 11 5 NA NA
40. McGrann Shea Anderson Carnival Straughn & Lamb 29 15 3 3 NA
42. Mackall, Crounse & Moore PLC 28 17 2 1 $75,000
42. Rinke Noonan 28 21 0 0 $50,000
44. Parsinen Kaplan Rosberg & Gotlieb, PA 27 15 3 NA NA
44. Quinlivan & Hughes, PA 27 18 2 0 NA
46. Dunlap & Seeger, PA 26 15 2 NA NA
46. Krass Monroe, PA 26 11 3 3 NA
48. Fryberger, Buchanan, Smith & Frederick, PA 25 13 2 1 NA
48. Fulbright & Jaworski LLP 25 9 6 6 NA
48. Jardine Logan & O'Brien, PLLP 25 15 2 0 NA
48. Lind, Jensen, Sullivan & Peterson, PA 25 12 5 2 NA

NA = no answer or information not available • *Ranked by Minnesota lawyers based on totals given by firm. Information is current as of Dec. 1, 2007. • Due to a tie, there are 51 firms listed.

New Firms on the Block
We got the dish on a couple of Minnesota’s newest law firms

By Erin Gulden

Eastward Bound
A West Coast firm finds a home amidst Minnesota’s agriculture economy
It started simply enough. Members of Lindquist & Vennum’s renewable energy team would run into Portland, Oregon-based Stoel Rives attorneys at conferences. They would refer clients back and forth––Midwestern clients to Lindquist; West Coast clients to Stoel. The attorneys saw enough of each other to learn names and build friendships. Eventually, says Lindquist alum and Stoel Rives attorney David Quinby, “things led to things,” and a new branch of Stoel Rives—a regional firm with 10 offices largely on the West Coast—was born in Minneapolis with 10 former Lindquist & Vennum attorneys at the helm.

It was a natural move, says Mark Hanson, who also made the switch from Lindquist to Stoel. For years, Stoel Rives had built a strong reputation in agribusiness and the food industry, as well as in renewable energy products such as biodiesel, biomass and wind energy facilities. With Minnesota’s strong agricultural economy and growing interest in renewable energy sources such as ethanol and soy, the state seemed like a natural outpost for Stoel Rives.

The actual transition, according to Quinby, went smoothly and took only a few months. Talks regarding the new office started in the winter of 2006, and by June 1 the new Stoel Rives attorneys—former Lindquist partners Ron McFall, Kevin Prohaska, Joe Thompson, Jonathan Miesen, Kevin Johnson, Eric Bartsch, Joel Dahlgren, Marc Al, Hanson and Quinby—set up a temporary shop in the Fifth Street Towers. The firm moved into a permanent office at 33 South Sixth Street on December 1, where Hanson says the firm is poised for success.

“We’ve always intended to expand,” he says. “We already have a few additional attorneys coming in, and plan to add more.”

Going National
A Minneapolis firm expands and gives four former Rider Bennett attorneys a new home

When Tina Syring-Petrocchi’s client had a question about a tricky Florida law, she didn’t panic. She simply called a colleague in the Sunshine State and had an answer within minutes.

“In the past I would have had to take the time to research the law,” the Ford & Harrison attorney explains. “But I just called down to the Florida office and had an answer to my client in 10 minutes.”

The “past” that Syring-Petrocchi refers to is the seven years she spent with longtime Minneapolis firm Rider Bennett, which had national clients but only a Minneapolis office. That “lack of scope,” Syring-Petrocchi says, is one of the reasons Rider Bennett voted to dissolve in April 2007, and for her, it was motivation to find a firm that had multiple offices throughout the country.

“We were all in job-hunting mode,” she says of her 90 fellow Rider Bennett attorneys. Syring-Petrocchi, an Indiana native, had lived in Minnesota since graduating from Hamline Law School, and she and her family wanted to stay in-state. Luckily, Ford & Harrison, a national firm that handles the “management side of employment and labor law,” she says, was looking to expand its small Minneapolis outpost and offered Syring-Petrocchi, along with three of her fellow Rider Bennett alums, a home.

“When I heard about Rider Bennett closing, I picked up the phone and contacted the first person who looked like they fit,” managing partner Charlie Feuss says. “It was a great opportunity.”

Ford & Harrison’s four-person Minneapolis office had opened in December 2005, and, according to Feuss, had “set its sights on expansion in 2007.” After Rider Bennett closed its doors, Syring-Petrocchi joined with fellow labor and employment attorneys Andy Tanick, Jody Ward and Charlie Roach, who had been chair of Rider Bennett’s Labor and Employment Practice Group. With 200 attorneys in 18 offices nationwide, the expansion brought Ford & Harrison’s Minneapolis branch closer to the firm’s average of 12 lawyers per office.

But the expansion brought more than new attorneys to Ford & Harrison’s headquarters at 225 South Sixth Street––the dissolution of their old firm meant the new associates could bring many of their clients as well.

“Since we have clients who work on the national level—those in the hospitality industry, energy manufacturing, retail—it really helps to have this national platform,” says Syring-Petrocchi. “When you need an answer beyond the scope of the state, it opens a new world to clients.”

And according to Feuss, the transition has been incredibly smooth—and encouraging.

“We had to expand our space a little but that was more focused toward future growth,” Feuss says, adding that the firm is already looking to expand further, perhaps to 12 or 15 attorneys. “Then we’ll hit critical mass.”