Barnes & Thornburg’s downtown Indianapolis offices. (IBJ file photo)
Barnes & Thornburg LLP has significantly expanded its government services and finance team with the addition of 35 lawyers, including 25 partners, the firm announced last week.
The move brings the Indianapolis-headquartered firm’s public finance team to 56 lawyers who handle a variety of issues, including state and local government, banking, civil and social infrastructure and municipal securities regulation and enforcement.
“This is transformative for our team and the firm,” Richard Hall, Barnes & Thornburg government services and finance department chair, said in a Feb. 19 press release. “Our newly expanded bench positions Barnes & Thornburg in the nation’s top 10 practices for public finance and deepens the services and value we can provide to clients across the finance and regulatory landscape.”
The new attorneys are scattered across the country, in cities including Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Phoenix, New York, Baltimore, Minneapolis and Denver.
Hall did not immediately respond to The Indiana Lawyer’s messages seeking additional comment.
The new group joins Barnes & Thornburg from Ballard Spahr LLP, a Philadelphia-headquartered national firm with over 700 lawyers.
Peter Michaud, chair of Ballard Spahr, told The Lawyer in an email: “The group feels that their practice is a better fit for a different platform, and we agree. We wish them nothing but the best.”
According to Barnes & Thornburg, the new team has been nationally and internationally recognized, and trade publication The Bond Buyer regularly ranked them in the Top 10 nationally by dollar volume of bond issuances as bond and underwriter counsel.
Along with the new hires, Barnes & Thornburg has also opened new offices in Baltimore, Denver and Phoenix. It was not immediately clear if those offices were directly related to the hiring move, or if the new hires were going to be relocated to those offices. A spokesperson for the firm did not immediately respond to The Lawyer’s messages seeking clarification.
Barnes & Thornburg is the largest law firm in the Indianapolis area, according to 2024 IBJ research – the most recent available – with 192 attorneys locally and more than 760 nationwide.
Since 2020, the firm has added over 200 lawyers and established offices in Boston, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia and Morristown, New Jersey, according to a press release.