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Another out-of-state law firm is setting up shop in D.C. to be closer to the federal agencies based here and tap into the region’s wealth of legal talent.
Cranfill Sumner, a North Carolina-based firm that specializes in white-collar defense, regulatory enforcement and representing whistleblowers before federal agencies, is opening an office in D.C. after bringing on former Assistant Secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission Christina Zaroulis Milnor as a partner.
But the new office won’t say ‘Cranfill Sumner” on the door. Instead, it will operate under the brand Mincey Bell Milnor and as a boutique affiliate of Cranfill Sumner.
Cranfill Sumner is among several national or regional law firms that have expand into D.C. recently. Some, including Robinson+Cole and Garfunkel Wild have already opened new offices in the District, while others, including Spencer Fane, have announced plans to do so.
The firm has not yet secured office space but is in lease negotiations and expects to be in its new digs in a matter of weeks, Milnor told me in an interview. She declined to disclose where the space is but said it will be in the District and not in its suburbs.
Stephen Bell, a Cranfill Sumner partner and the “Bell” in Mincey Bell Milnor, said the firm needs to have a presence in D.C. because its attorneys spend so much time here already, either representing whistleblowers or dealing with agencies like the SEC or the FBI investigating white-collar crime.
As for the separate branding, that is a nod to Milnor’s name recognition after having served at the SEC for more than a decade, as well as to the reputations he and partner Patrick Mincey have built within federal agencies over their years of traveling between D.C. and North Carolina.
“Christina is frankly an unmatched talent in the area,” Bell said in an interview. “From a strategic standpoint, we thought it made sense to set up this affiliate boutique under our names because of the cachet and the incredible name recognition of Christina and for the work Patrick Mincey and I do up there.”
Still, Milnor was quick to add that this is not a newly created law firm and that the D.C. team will be working very closely with Cranfill Sumner’s roughly 80 attorneys in its three offices in Raleigh, Charlotte and Wilmington, North Carolina.
“We have the benefit of being associated with a larger firm, so as the work demands, it won’t be just members of [Mincey Bell Milnor] working on whistleblower or white-collar cases,” she said. “There are plenty of other talented attorneys from North Carolina who will be working with us.”
Milnor, who left the SEC in March, said the D.C. office will start off with five attorneys but that it expects to add at least that many over the next year.
"Based on the number of calls we are getting, I think we will have a large number of whistleblower and financial industry clients over the next year," she said. "We'll need to at least double where we are now."
