Bi-coastal merger of Nixon Peabody LLP and Lillick & Charles LLP to

Daily Record (Rochester, NY), Jul 3, 2001 by Daily Record Staff

Nixon Peabody LLP and Lillick & Charles LLP will merge effective August 1, 2001.

Lillick & Charles is a 70-attorney firm with offices in San Francisco and Orange County, California. The firm will change its name to Nixon Peabody LLP and will integrate its California offices with Nixon Peabody's other locations in 11 cities.

Harry P. Trueheart, III and Nestor M. Nicholas serve as co- managing partners of Nixon Peabody.

We decided the best way to serve our clients on the West Coast was to have a presence there through a merger, explained Trueheart. This mid-size law firm has a diversified practice and a sophisticated base of business, transactional, finance and litigation clients.

Managing partner of Lillick & Charles, John M. Rosenthal, stated, The law firms share a similar vision of the future. In the next five years, the strongest competitors in the legal marketplace will be large national firms that are able to serve businesses with a full array of services in most of the nation's major business and technology centers. To be a credible player, law firms must have a presence in those centers.

Lillick & Charles dates back to 1897 when Ira S. Lillick began his law practice in San Francisco. The firm is highly respected in the California business arena, while continuing its tradition as a national and international law firm with clients in New York, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, England, France, Germany, Scandinavia and Canada.

The cultures of the firms are very compatible, said Nicholas. I expect a smooth transition.