Girard-diCarlo to step down at Blank Rome

David Girard-diCarlo, a leader of the city's legal establishment and a major fundraiser for Republican candidates both locally and nationally, plans to step down as chairman of the Blank Rome LLP law firm by the end of next year as the firm seeks to grow in the U.S. and abroad, the firm announced today.

Girard-diCarlo, who has served in a leadership position at the firm for more than 20 years, said the time was right to step down as the firm looks for new expansion opportunities.

Alan J. Hoffman, head of Blank Rome's litigation department and Thomas (Mike) Dyer, who leads the firm's Washington office, will replace Girard-diCarlo as co-chairmen. Girard-diCarlo said the change will be effective Jan. 1, 2009. He said the long lead time was desirable because it will give the new management team and the firm time to adjust.

As part of the same shift, Gary Goldenberg will take over as the firm's finance partner. Carl Buchholz will remain as managing partner and CEO of the firm.

Girard-diCarlo, 64, said that as the firm seeks to recruit new partners both domestically and internationally it is important that they sign on with a management team that will be in place for a longer duration.

"We are working diligently right now to find the right professionals; it is very important in that exercise for any firm we are talking with to know who their leaders are and that their leaders have a time horizon of sufficient length," Girard-diCarlo said.

Like other big firms in Philadelphia and across the nation, the 508 lawyer Blank Rome has been on an aggressive expansion drive, and it expects the growth to continue.

It has bolstered its offices in New York and Washington, where it added a government relations and lobbying subsidiary in 2003. It now has set its sights on establishing an international presence beyond its office in Hong Kong, its one non domestic location, and an affiliation with a government relations firm based in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union.

"The traditional model for service firms and law firms has changed," Girard-diCarlo said. "It is not going to be business as usual and it cannot be business as usual. We are living in a global world. Our firm has to be in California, Texas, Chicago, London and Dubai. We have to be in a lot of places where we are not currently.

"We did not want to do that until we had built powerhouses in the three cities most important to our growth:" Washington, New York and Philadelphia, Girard-diCarlo said.

By extending its reach both nationally and internationally, the firm is targeting higher end corporate and transactional work that generates higher fees and enhances its ability to recruit new partners and young associates.

Such growth can cause dislocations, however.

Blank Rome closed its offices in Media and Allentown because the lower fees generated by those offices didn't square well with the escalating costs of a firm with national and international ambitions, said Carl Buchholz, the firm's managing partner.

"It didn't make sense to have a letterhead with New York and Hong Kong and Allentown," Buchholz said.

Growth also is potentially a roll of the dice, for the legal world is replete with stories of mergers that have gone sour because the merging firms had clashing professional cultures, or because the promised economic benefits never materialized.

Girard-diCarlo said Blank Rome has sought to avoid those problems by growing first in a handful of important markets and using that as a base for further expansion.

Following the transition in 2009, Girard-diCarlo said, he plans to have no role in the management of the firm, although he plans to continue practicing law, consulting with clients as part of the firm's government relations business in Washington, and pursuing his wide ranging civic interests, which includes a seat on the board of the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Girard-diCarlo, a former chairman of SEPTA, also is a fundraiser for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination.

He was a top fundraiser for President Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 elections.

"I will not be in a leadership position (at the firm) at all," he said, adding that to be involved might stifle the new management. "It is counter productive and not wise. If they (previous leaders) are in the room (with new managers) then ideas are chilled and conversations are constrained because people wonder what the prior leadership would do."

Snapshot: David Girard-diCarlo