South Jersey's largest law firm opens first office outside Mid-Atlantic to expand China practice - Philadelphia Business Journal - The Business Journals
Archer & Greiner has opened its first office outside the Mid-Atlantic region in Houston, which will be home to its new China practice group.
Steve Packman, chairman of the firm’s bankruptcy practice, will co-head the China practice with one of the three new additions — Jiangang (James) Ou, who will be joined by fellow partners Ying Chen and Brian Gargano in Houston. The firm leased a small office space at 3040 Post Oak Blvd.
All three attorneys were previously practicing with BOGC Legal, a temporary law firm they founded last November after leaving Nguyen & Chen, where they practiced for more than eight years.
The trio have experience in cross-border commercial litigation and arbitration, bankruptcy, intellectual property, enforcement of foreign country judgments and arbitral awards, business counseling and U.S.-China mergers and acquisitions. Their legal experience spans representing a various industries, including manufacturing, pharmaceutical, medical devices, petroleum, agriculture, aquaculture, alternative and renewable energy, among others.
They currently represent U.S. and Chinese clients doing business with or in China. As native speakers of Mandarin, and with more than 20 years of combined experience practicing law in China and the U.S., James and Ying can interpret and explain legal issues faced by Chinese clients.
Packman said he himself has represented Chinese clients for quite some time, primarily in bankruptcy and commercial litigation. He has handled cases as co-counsel with Ou’s team
“I just thought that they might be a good fit with our firm in terms of the China practice and the Houston legal market,” Packman said. “And for one reason or another, it just didn't work for a while. And then it did. And then they were interested. We thought that not only would it be a great opportunity to expand our existing China clientele, but also given the growing Houston market.”
Packman said he recently represented a large Chinese solar panel manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy restructuring and through Ou, their foreign representative, said that they would like to protect their U.S. assets — which included more than 400 massive containers of solar panels in a South Jersey warehouse.
Packman was retained to file in U.S. District Court in Camden a Chapter 15 bankruptcy, where a representative of a corporate bankruptcy proceeding outside the U.S. can obtain access to the U.S. courts. This allows cooperation between U.S. courts and foreign courts, as well as other authorities of foreign countries involved in cross-border insolvency cases. He has filed several Chapter 15 cases on behalf of Chinese clients.
Archer & Greiner, which just relocated its headquarters from Haddonfield to Voorhees, is the largest law firm based in South Jersey. It has 170 lawyers spread over eight offices in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York but it has never ventured outside the Mid-Atlantic region.
Packman said it was not a difficult sell with his partners for a few reasons. Chief among them is the pre-existing relationship with Ou’s team
“They presented an opportunity that is, in my view, exceedingly difficult to find,” Packman said. “A lot of firms will open an office in China and try to bring in people from there. They'll hire Chinese-American attorneys. But these are seasoned Chinese born and trained attorneys who just happen to practice here now.”
Archer has a strong petroleum practice, Packman said, including representing Exxon for over 30 years. Naturally, Houston was a good fit to expand the energy practice.
“And I think most importantly, Covid has taught us is that it's not really that hard to run an office from anywhere,” Packman said. “So whereas in the past, I think everyone viewed the opening of an office in a new territory or out of the country as a huge risk, I don't really think we view it as that anymore. With the technology that's just been proven to work through over the last two plus years.”
Archer secured small space initially — three offices and shared conference space. Packman said there is room to grow and that expansion could be tied to the China practice, though he noted that Ou and Gargano are both admitted to practice in New York and there could be additions to the practice there.
“Whether we add somebody in Houston or elsewhere remains to be seen,” Packman said. “But I do think we could potentially add attorneys in different in other legal areas, including petroleum, alternative energy litigation, corporate. It just depends on how things play out.”
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| Rank | Name | Local attorneys |
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| 1 | Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP | 299 |
| 2 | Cozen O'Connor | 293 |
| 3 | Ballard Spahr LLP | 257 |
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source: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2022/05/03/archer-greiner-opens-houston-office.html
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