America's leading black law firms - Cover Story

Black Enterprise, August, 1993

Positioning itself as a player in the narrow but lucrative bond field has required more than being a quick study. If s also meant forging strategic alliances with firms like Detroit's Lewis, White & Clay (and its network of affiliates in eight states). And sometimes it's necessary to import specialists when the work demands mare bodies than Fitch, Wiley has in-house. Frequently, the firm serves as co-counsel with a majority firm. In 1989 Fitch, Wiley, tapped Boston's 250-lawyer Goodwin, Procter&hoarto play second fiddle in a$225million equity real estate transaction with Aetna Life Insurance Co. It was one of the largest real estate deals Aetna had ever done.

Columbia University-trained partner, Harrison Fitch, 50, says his firm has avoided the ego clashes and other barriers to cooperative ventures between firms: "All of our mergers have been client-driven. That reality allows you to put ego issues aside. We are competing with majority firms, so the question is whether you can compete honorably and honestly."

HARDIMAN, ALEXANDER, BUCHANAN &

HOWLAND, Cleveland

When it comes to the potential for big legal fees, practicing civil rights law hardly ranks with handling, say, mergers and acquisitions. Yet the principals of one Cleveland law firm have spun a lucrative full-service practice on top of a solid civil rights foundation.

Hardiman, Alexander, Buchanan & Howland started in 1984, when three civil rights lawyers-friends from their law school days - decided to combine their strengths. Now the firm is one of Cleveland's premier civil rights defenders, partly on the reputation of Cleveland Marshall Law School graduate James L. Hardiman, 51. He had been chosen in 1974 as a member of the NAACP'S lead counsel team in the landmark Cleveland schools desegregation case. That affiliation helped propel Hardiman, Alexander to its status. The ongoing case continues to generate six-figures annually for the firm.

Since its infancy, the firm has evolved into a general practice, handling criminal defense, collections and commercial transactions. Unlike some minority firms, that aim narrowly for large, blue chip clients, Hardiman, Alexander works on the principle that responding to broad-based black concerns can be lucrative, too. Aside from taking on matters for giants like DuPont and General Motors, the 14-attorney firm serves as general counsel for Personal Physician Care, a local, black-owned $25 million health maintenance organization (HMO). Another prized minority client is Unity Rubber, a $10 million rubber parts maker.

Managing partner A. Deane Buchanan, 46, says that these relationships make sense. "Our roots are in the black community," says Buchanan, who earned his J.D. at Case Western Reserve University. Handling transactional work for smaller clients should help the firm to pursue similar matters at larger concerns as well.

JONES, WARE & GRENARD, Chicago

Andrea M. Buford remembers the day when a presiding judge asked who was defending Shell Oil Company and she stood up. "The judge looked down at me from the bench in disbelief, like, 'How are you representing them?'" says Buford, head of Jones, Ware & Grenard's litigation section.