Barnes & Thornburg Celebrates 25 Years of Practicing Law in Chicago

CHICAGO – Barnes & Thornburg’s Chicago office is celebrating 25 years in Chicago, where it is the law firm’s second-largest office and has grown to more than 100 attorneys.

The anniversary will be marked by an April reception in the firm’s newly renovated space in the UBS Tower at One North Wacker. Operating on three floors connected by internal stairs in 2017, the firm optioned an additional half floor below it that year, expanded internal stairs to connect it to existing space, and remodeled all three and one-half floors for optimal design and functionality. The new space now includes a segregated conference center for clients, internal conference and war rooms with updated technology linking attorneys to all the firm’s 14 offices coast-to-coast, and reconfigured and expanded kitchen and event-hosting areas. The space saved by reducing office sizes and making better use of internal space permitted the firm to occupy floors 42, 43 and 44, and lease the entire 45th floor for five years. Because that floor is also connected by an internal staircase, it is being reserved to accommodate expected future expansion.

“Our new space is not only beautiful, but it affords us more efficiency and flexibility, in keeping with modern workplaces,” said Mark E. Rust, Chicago managing partner. “Culturally speaking, it was important to us to eliminate some physical barriers in our office, so we made sure to maintain our collaborative style with adjoining floors and open work spaces.”

The newly updated space is just one of the many reasons for Barnes & Thornburg’s Chicago office to celebrate. Over the last five years, the firm’s second-largest location has captured significant market position by recruiting and integrating the region’s elite legal talent. The firm has grown from just one attorney in 1994 to more than 100 attorneys today.

“Lateral hiring has always been and will continue to be integral to our growth. We’ve been very successful in attracting premier attorneys with established client bases, and it’s been really rewarding to see how they’ve prospered through our platform and helped to create new synergies,” added Rust. “Our financial strength, practice depth and value proposition have really resonated in the marketplace – this milestone should be attributed to the success of our people.”

Barnes & Thornburg’s Chicago office provides a full range of legal services, including intellectual property, labor and employment, life sciences, litigation, healthcare, corporate, real estate, environmental, nonprofit associations and foundations, employee benefits, finance, insolvency and restructuring, estate planning, construction, and tax. The firm’s attorneys have been at the forefront of some of the city, state and nation’s most high-profile, hotly contested legal matters, including an important Affordable Care Act case on behalf of the State of Illinois now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The firm is currently growing its mergers and acquisition and private equity practice and has nearly double its large intellectual property presence in recent years.

With more than 600 attorneys and other legal professionals, Barnes & Thornburg is one of the largest law firms in the country. The firm serves clients worldwide from 14 offices in Atlanta, California, Chicago, Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minneapolis, Ohio, Texas and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit us online at www.btlaw.com or on Twitter @BTLawNews.