Hawley Troxell, Moffatt Thomas law firms join forces

Idaho business law firms Hawley Troxell and Moffatt Thomas have joined forces to create a 75-lawyer firm called Hawley Troxell that will operate out of Hawley Troxell’s offices in the Wells Fargo building in Boise.

The agreement, effective August 1, is not exactly a merger, said Hawley Troxell Managing Partner Nick Miller. But the two firms will operate as one, with Moffatt Thomas lawyers slowly making a transition from their offices nearby in downtown Boise into the Wells Fargo space over the coming months.

“We are combining forces and going forward under one roof,” Miller said. “Technically, this is the end of the Moffatt Thomas fiscal year, so they are starting fresh.”

Hawley Troxell was already the largest law firm in Idaho, with offices in Boise, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, and Reno. The firm said the August 1 agreement will increase its presence statewide, particularly in Boise and Pocatello.

Along with almost all of the Moffatt Thomas lawyers, Hawley Troxell is adding veteran business lawyer Paul Street, a former partner at Moffatt Thomas who retired August 1 as general counsel at BHMC Stock Holdings Inc. and will join Hawley Troxell as the two firms combine. Miller said winning Street was a coup for the new firm.

“Paul is like the greatest guy on earth basically,” Miller said. “We’ll have an opportunity to reach further than we previously have.”

Law firm mergers have become a fact of life in the legal business as firms adjust to market changes including competition from online legal services. The international legal consulting firm Altman Weil reported that the pace of mergers started to pick up after the Great Recession. The 91 law firm mergers in 2015 set a record, and 2016 was the fourth consecutive year with 80 or more major firms combining forces nationally. However, merger activity slowed in the third quarter of last year, Altman Weil said.

“That slowdown may have been an early signal that prize firms in key markets are getting harder to find,” the report said.

Miller and Clay Gill, a partner at Moffatt Thomas who is on the board of that firm, said national market forces were one factor behind the agreement. The firms had been formally discussing joining forces for about six months.

“We’ve seen on the business side you have competitive services that have come into the market like Legal Zoom and the internet that have created a whole new phenomenon,” Miller said. The two said there will be economies of scale in areas like marketing and cybersecurity; Hawley Troxell now spends more to keep its online information secure than it does on rent.

And “having a deeper bench and strength in numbers will enable us to compete” with existing out-of-state firms that have large offices in Boise, Miller said.

The agreement is the largest ever for both firms. About two years ago, Hawley Troxell joined with the four-attorney Smith and Banks law firm of Idaho Falls. And a month ago, the four-attorney Moffatt Thomas office in Idaho Falls split off to join Parsons Behle & Latimer.

Governance of the new Boise firm has not been settled. There is a vacancy on Hawley Troxell’s five-person board that will be filled within the course of the next few months, and candidates from the Moffatt Thomas side will be considered for that position, Miller said.

Miller views the firm’s Idaho roots as a strong selling point for the newly enlarged firm.

“People like to know who they are dealing with, and they like to know that the governance and management of a law firm is in the same home town they are,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to everybody, but there are some people it definitely matters a great deal to.”