Greenberg Traurig has opened two offices in Long Island – in Bridgehampton and Garden City – as its revenue cracks $2bn for the first time in its 55-year history. 

The Miami-headquartered firm has hired four partners from Long Island firm Farrell Fritz and two other senior lawyers with strong local connections to lead the venture, with support from around 20 associates who are relocating to the offices from Manhattan. 

By moving into the suburbs, the firm said it intends to continue adapting to the ‘new normal’ by providing a ‘hybrid’ model that will allow for greater work-life balance for attorneys and wider access to legal services for locally-based clients. 

The Farrell Fritz team joining Greenberg is led by transactional and commercial litigation attorney Brian Doyle and commercial litigator John McEntee. They have been appointed co-managing shareholders of the offices. Doyle will be based at Bridgehampton and McEntee at Garden City.

Also joining from Farrell Fritz are David Gilmartin and Kathryn Cole. Gilmartin focuses his practice on land use, zoning, real estate, commercial matters and related litigation while Cole specialises in complex commercial matters including contract disputes, product liability claims, torts and class actions. 

Greenberg has also hired two other senior attorneys with strong local connections – Mark Lesko, who most recently served as acting assistant attorney general for the US Department of Justice’s national security division in Washington DC, and James Miskiewicz, who was deputy general counsel of the Long Island Power Authority.

Lesko, who will join the Bridgehampton office on 24 January, spent just under a year as acting US attorney for the Eastern District of New York before moving to the DoJ, having moved up from his position as first assistant US attorney last March.

Prior to going in-house, Miskiewicz, who will be based at Garden City, held various positions in the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York between 2009 and 2017. 

Greenberg has claimed the move makes it the first global law firm to establish a ‘substantial presence’ on Long Island. The firm has three other sites in the New York metropolitan area, in Manhattan, White Plains and Florham Park, New Jersey. 

Executive chairman Richard Rosenbaum said the firm saw expanding into Long Island as a “huge and timely opportunity”. 

He added: “Advancements in technology have led to substantial secular shifts, allowing key business decision-makers and attorneys who service them to work from anywhere they prefer, not only major metropolitan cities, but also, increasingly, suburbs, resort towns, second homes, and areas perhaps more favourable to their business. We believe these trends, accelerated by the pandemic, are here to stay.” 

Rosenbaum also revealed its revenues topped $2bn for the first time in 2021 coupled with a “substantial increase in profits”. The early indication of the firm's performance means it achieved growth of at least 16% on the $1.73bn revenue it posted for 2020. 

Last year, Greenberg made a number of eye-catching team hires. In October, it secured a six-partner London disputes team from Mishcon de Reya, which brought the number of lawyers the firm added in London during the Covid-19 pandemic to around 50 and its litigation practice to almost one-third of the office.

Greenberg also hired a seven-strong group of real estate lawyers including one partner and two senior associates from Dentons to replenish its real estate offering in Warsaw, having lost 10 lawyers to CMS in November. And in the same month, the firm added a seven-strong team from Holland & Knight to set up a labour and employment practice in Mexico City.

This week Quinn Emanuel also released details of its 2021 finances, expressing satisfaction with a flat revenue performance by its London office given a record 2020 and the ‘particular challenge’ of losing a high-profile competition team last year.