The following is an excerpt from an article published in the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal. (Monday, March 2 issue) Read the full story here.
Twenty years after entering the Northwest Arkansas market, the state’s largest Arkansas-based law firm is planning another significant move.
And it will be an additional example of the shifting business climate in the region.
Little Rock-based Friday, Eldredge & Clark LLP, known in the legal community as the “Friday firm,” is planning to consolidate its two Northwest Arkansas offices into a single location. The firm is winding down operations at its Fayetteville office on North Futrall Drive. In just a few weeks, Friday will house all of its attorneys and staff at its existing Rogers office on the top floor of a 43,500-square-foot office building at 3350 S. Pinnacle Hills Parkway, west of Interstate 49.
Marshall Ney, partner with Friday, Eldredge & Clark LLP in Rogers. The Little Rock-based firm is expanding its Rogers office in Pinnacle Hills and will consolidate its two Northwest Arkansas offices there.
Marshall S. Ney, a partner who oversees the Rogers office, says the firm is adding about 3,000 square feet to accommodate the consolidation. Friday is building out a former vendor office adjacent to its existing space. When the expansion is complete, the firm will have about 10,000 square feet and the capacity for nearly 20 lawyers.
Friday’s attorney roster in Northwest Arkansas has gradually shifted toward Benton County through the years. The firm now has 11 attorneys based in Northwest Arkansas — eight in Rogers and three in Fayetteville.
Five years ago, the firm had nine attorneys based in the region, seven of them from the primary office in Fayetteville, which measures roughly 7,500 square feet.
The firm will complete the consolidation later this spring. Ney said the Rogers expansion would re-up a 10-year lease with the building owner.
“The majority of our growth over the past several years has been in Benton County,” Ney said. “It makes sense at this point to have the synergy of [having] all our lawyers in a single office.”
Ney said the firm would be “opportunistic” in adding attorneys in Northwest Arkansas. The office handles a variety of work, including business transactional work, tax advice, real estate transactional work, estate planning, school law and business disputes, with an emphasis on non-compete agreements and trade secrets.
One position that will be filled on the immediate horizon, Ney said, is an additional tax attorney. That would fit the firm profile. Of the firm’s nearly 90 attorneys, almost a third of them also have the Masters of Laws in Taxation degree.
“I think that differentiates our firm from most any firm in this region of the country to have such a huge percentage of lawyers who have advanced legal degrees in that area,” Ney said.
This is a portion of the article written by Paul Gatling of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal. Read the full story here.