Clockwise from top left: Kathryn Hopping, Mikaela Rivera, Darrell Waas and Patricia Campbell.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story said the firm has had two layoff rounds. The firm’s managing partner said there has been only one.
By Don Knox, LAW WEEK COLORADO
Three litigation shareholders and one litigation associate at Otten Johnson Robinson Neff & Ragonetti, a top 25 Colorado law firm, confirmed Monday that they are leaving to form their own firm.
Darrell Waas, one of the departing shareholders, told Law Week Colorado he will be joined by shareholders Patricia Campbell and Mikaela Rivera and by associate Kathryn Hopping.
“We’re going to do commercial litigation, eminent domain and construction litigation, which is what we’ve always done,” Waas said.
Waas said the move was a “normal progression” of careers and opportunities.
“It’s nothing dramatic or specific,” he said.
With an emphasis on commercial real estate law, Otten Johnson has been hit harder by the economic downturn than other Denver law firms. The firm has had one layoff round this year.
After the departures, the firm is still left with a sizable litigation group that includes shareholders Munsey Ayers, David Hutchinson, James Johnson, Thomas Macdonald and Brad Schact, and associates Dimitri Adloff and Bill Kyriagis.
Firm managing partner Mike Westover couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
But Waas denied it was the overall firm’s fortunes that prompted the group’s move.
“No, it’s really not,” he said. “It’s just a point for the four of us to do something on our own. So we decided to take it.”
The four considered going to a different firm. “We just decided that what we wanted to do and the most interesting thing to us is to stick together with a small group and do litigation stuff without the big structure that goes with the larger firms.”
Waas said the four will be moving into offices at the Market Center at 17th and Market streets “in a couple of weeks.”
Asked whether others were being courted to join the group, Waas said only: “Nobody else is leaving.”
Lawyers leaving their firms typically depend on taking their clients with them, and the departing Otten group is no exception.
“All the clients get to make their own decision about where they want to have their litigation,” Waas said. “We’re confident most of the clients will want to have us as their lawyers, but it’s a decision each gets to make, and we recognize that.”
