Page 31 - BusinessWest August 4, 2021

actional business runs deeper in some areas than Cooley Shrair’s, the firm can keep its cli- ents in house for a much wider range of mat- ters, instead of farming them out, he noted.
“We can keep an eye on the case and make sure it’s being handled properly, which is very difficult to do when you’re sending it out to somebody else, and you have no idea whether your client is being taken care of,” said Peter Shrair, another partner with the firm. “If we’re looking at the client’s inter-
est first, then the client gets a much better product.”
That’s one of the ideas behind what both firms aren’t calling a merger or an acquisi- tion, but a joining together of the two entities under the Halloran Sage umbrella.
Peter said he started talking informally to Bill McGrath, a partner at Halloran Sage, about such a relationship last year.
“Another lawyer in their office, Sue Scibil- ia, and I were talking about something else. She said to me, ‘you really should meet Bill McGrath. He’s a good business person and one of the smartest lawyers I’ve ever known.’ And I consider Sue to be one of the smart- est lawyers I’ve ever known. So, we started talking, and we saw some synergies between whatwedoandwhattheydo.AndIhada thought that one plus one could equal three, with a really good group of smart people working together.”
Casey O’Connell, another partner at Hal- loran Sage, agreed.
“This has always been a Connecticut- based firm with a regional focus,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re always looking to find
ways to better serve our clients and to pro- vide the best possible legal services that we as a legal firm can provide. So we’re always on the lookout to have talented attorneys with complementary practices and similar philosophies to join our firm.”
“We started talking, and we saw some synergies between what we do and what they do. And I had a thought that one plus one could equal three, with a really good group of smart people working together.
After informal discussions turned more specific over several months, he went on, “there were some meetings among people with the firms, and it was determined it would really be a great fit and a way for us
to collectively be bigger than we both were separately and, most importantly, to provide additional resources to our client base and Cooley Shrair’s client base to better serve our clients.”
For this issue’s focus on law, BusinessWest sat down with O’Connell and the two Shrairs to talk about why this relationship makes sense, and why both firms feel they — and
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David Shrair says the combined firm will be able to keep more clients completely in-house.
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