Blank Rome, under a new chairman, credits deep Philly roots as it builds a national future
A Philly firm since 1946, Blank Rome has grown to 664 lawyers, with offices in New York, Cincinnati, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Houston — and Shanghai.
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Grant S. Palmer is the new chairman of Blank Rome, one of the national corporate law firms based in Philadelphia. Past head of the litigation unit, he became managing partner in 2019, and succeeded Alan J. Hofmann as chairman Jan. 1.
Palmer, 59, agreed to talk about how his firm has evolved and how the practice of law has changed since he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania law school in 1989. He and his wife raised their three children in Philadelphia and its suburbs. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What were Blank Rome’s ties to the old Philadelphia establishment? How did you keep growing as the city lost its big companies?
The Penn Central railroad [and its epic 1970 bankruptcy] put us on the map. And we represented almost all of the Philadelphia banks [before they were sold in the 1980s and 1990s].
Under David F. Girard-diCarlo, who joined the board of PNC [in 1995 when it absorbed a pair of Philly-area banks], we transitioned the financial institutions practice into a national practice, one of our core practices. [PNC, based in Pittsburgh, is now the fifth-largest U.S. bank.]
All the major U.S. banks are now our clients. Our financial services, restructuring and bankruptcy practice is now as large as the entire firm was when I joined — 80 lawyers. We have been very intentional in our growth.
What does it mean to be a “Philadelphia law firm” when most clients and many staff are elsewhere?
We started in Philadelphia in 1946. [Almost one-third] of the senior leadership and practice leaders are based in Philadelphia, and a lot of the administration. We are proud of our Philadelphia roots. We’ve been in this office [One Logan Square, 130 N. 18th St.] since 2000, and we just took another 16-year lease.
But we are going to decrease the space. Right now we are on floors 3 through 11. We will give up at least three floors, from the bottom.
As a firm that’s growing nationally, our number-one growth place is in New York City, and New York will soon, probably, be our largest office. We have 343 partners as of today and 664 in all. About 200 of those lawyers are in Philadelphia, maybe 175 are already in New York.
We have other locations. [Blank Rome has offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and nine other U.S. cities, plus Philadelphia and Shanghai.]
Diversity has been important to us from the start. The guys who founded the firm couldn’t get a job at any other law firm in Philadelphia; they were Jewish. They focused at first on real estate and corporate practice. They figured that after World War II there would be an explosion of litigation. They were right.
Back then, we didn’t set our hourly rates. The Philadelphia Bar Association set a schedule, and the firm adhered to that. The profession has changed: We now increase rates every year. It’s one of the drivers of our business — to figure out the economic model.
How did you come to the law?
My father was a banker and businessman in Chambersburg. He owned a shop downtown, Palmer’s on the Square. I went to Penn Law. I graduated in 1989, got a federal clerkship, and came back to Blank Rome in 1990. Our revenues were less than $50 million. We now do that in a month. Of course, there’s been inflation.
You have an office in Shanghai. What future does that have?
Mike Margolis, who heads that office, joined us in Los Angeles. He moved to Shanghai and became the leader.
Many of our clients there do business subject to U.S. law. For example, we are helping companies from everywhere negotiate the U.S. anti-terrorism laws and the lawsuits [alleging companies’] actions may have led to terrorist acts.
That isn’t just in China. When Chiquita was accused of paying off guerrillas [in Colombia] to get their bananas shipped, we represented them.
Our strategic plan is to build our national platform in the United States. We have a maritime practice, probably one of the leaders in the country. We added three of the most elite maritime firms in the country, in New York, Houston, and D.C.
Where does Blank Rome fit with your peers in Philadelphia?
Morgan Lewis, Blank Rome, Dechert, Duane Morris, Cozen O’Connor are all firms founded in Philadelphia that have grown organically by adding lawyers individually and in small groups. We have brought in 75 lateral partners since I became managing partner in 2019. That’s a lot of folks.
Our biggest mergers were Tenzer Greenblatt, 80 lawyers in New York in 2000, and 100 lawyers from the Dickstein Shapiro firm in Washington, D.C., in 2016.
Some other large firms have used a different approach. Ballard Spahr, Drinker Biddle, Pepper, have each had mergers with other large firms [with hundreds of lawyers each] to increase their footprints.
The most important thing to me is holding on to what we think is a very special, tight-knit culture, now that we are over 600 lawyers.
It was a lot easier when we were smaller, and everyone was in the office five days a week. Now we have firm-wide town halls every month. ... We just got back to having a retreat — in Miami at the Intercontinental Hotel in late October. The energy of people!
We had a diversity summit. [The late] Sixth Circuit Judge Nathaniel A. Jones, a national civil rights figure and general counsel to the NAACP, was our first diversity and inclusion officer. We have our Women’s Leadership Summits; a goal has been to create an environment that enabled women to leverage relationships with clients, to be in charge of relationships, so they can be compensated for it.
We have low attrition. We say that nobody ever left this firm as a result of believing they were not compensated fairly.
How can you afford to pay more?
Compared to a lot of top firms, when we compete for litigation or a merger, we staff things more lean. We might have a major partner versus a team of six people. It gives our people substantive responsibility, more experience.
I spent 18 years as the chair of the pro bono committee for Blank Rome. We were one of the first firms to have a full-time pro bono director in 2002. In 2014, we required every attorney to contribute at least 25 hours. Two years ago for our 75th anniversary, we suggested 75 hours.
It has transformed the law firm in many ways. We are all blessed. We make a lot of money. So we see the difference we can make in communities.
Don’t some lawyers object to controversial causes?
It has not been an issue. We follow the American Bar Association guidelines: Pro bono means doing legal work for someone who could not afford it.
Gun rights is an issue. We have represented the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. We have been pretty out front with issues that arose during the pandemic with regard to racial injustice. It’s not everyone’s preference but there have not been many objections.
Would it be easier to run the firm from Philadelphia if the city attracted more big employers?
Philadelphia has experienced a bit of a renaissance in recent years. There is more life sciences and tech coming into Philly. It’s a trickle, but it’s a start.
Taxes are an issue; they have been for a long time. I moved to Philadelphia for law school in 1986. I think this is a much stronger city and has way more to offer, from restaurants to events, than when I came here. We are going in the right direction.