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Tibor Nagy isn\u2019t a stranger to the boutique law firm life. A veteran of Susman Godfrey, Nagy was the first attorney to join Stephen Susman in setting up a New York office back in the day. As 2025 dawns, Nagy has launched his own firm Nagy Wolfe Appleton LLP<\/a> \u2014 along with partners Gregory Wolfe and Tracy Appleton \u2014 guided by the \u201cvision of an early Susman Godfrey,\u201d building a tight-knit collegial team working on high-stakes, complex commercial litigation.<\/p>\n Not even a week into the year, the firm is already busy with three trials lined up over the coming months.<\/p>\n Boutique firms aren\u2019t new, obviously, but the launch of a new, small firm aimed at top-dollar legal work is a reminder of the growing demand for this business model.<\/p>\n As the top of the industry consolidates through more and more Biglaw mergers<\/a>, boutique firms increasingly fill industry gaps. Bigger firms mean bigger lists of conflicts. And as Nagy points out, it\u2019s not just existing clients, but \u201cconflicts that they hope<\/em> to have,\u201d citing instances from his own career where he took on cases because big firms steered clear of going against big fish clients that some partner dreamed of bagging down the road.<\/p>\n Boutiques, on the other hand, offer freedom. For Nagy, that freedom extends to both sides of the \u201cv,\u201d with a mix of clients on both the plaintiff and defense side. \u201cI love that representing a plaintiff can change someone\u2019s life. And I have great experiences on defense side, but wouldn\u2019t want to do only that.\u201d He noted that staying flexible in this way \u201cgives you the freedom to learn about both sides [of areas of law] that you wouldn\u2019t otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n But it\u2019s one thing to watch Biglaw firms close themselves off to work and another to build a firm that can seize that business. Complex commercial litigation is, for lack of a better term, complex. These are the sorts of cases that bury a firm in documents and, by extension, overhead as the firm builds out enough capacity to deal with it. Yet that obstacle doesn\u2019t seem to deter boutiques as much as it did 20 or even 10 years ago.<\/p>\n In part, this a story about legal technology. \u201cI think it\u2019s fantastic to launch right now,\u201d Nagy said. \u201cThe technology makes it easier to do everyday things.\u201d Need phones? Zoom will get you a number cheap. Need 401(k)s? There\u2019s a swift solution for that. \u201cI had a case with a massive volume of documents, we had a team of five people [within the firm]\u2026 and three did most of the work.\u201d Citing improved discovery tech and skilled vendors and contract attorneys, he explained that small firms are getting bigger matters done with confidence.<\/p>\n Though one of the best ways to save money is to shrink the office footprint. \u201cYou don\u2019t need massive office space if you allow people to work remotely and a lot want to,\u201d he said. It\u2019s easy to stay connected and the pandemic taught even the most tech-skeptical lawyer how to work seamlessly from home, so there\u2019s no reason to waste resources on massive offices. As long as the firm hires people who don\u2019t need someone looking over their shoulder, the only facetime you need is on the smartphone.<\/p>\n Clients appreciate it. \u201cThey hire the lawyer, not the firm,\u201d Nagy observed of big clients showing more confidence to make personal hires than chase brand name law firms. But the partner at the top of the matter still needs to deliver a team that clients trust. \u201cWhat we\u2019re selling are our people, their talent, their drive,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe try to find really smart and driven people.\u201d<\/p>\n And if it can save the client some money to get top-notch work, all the better.<\/p>\n Nagy Wolfe Appleton LLP launches as boutique firms flex muscle. The post New Firm Highlights The Bright Future For Litigation Boutiques appeared first on Above the Law. (Photo by Gary Hershorn\/Getty Images) Tibor Nagy isn\u2019t a stranger to the boutique law firm life. A veteran of Susman Godfrey, Nagy was the first attorney to join […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":99415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/GettyImages-2173820378-jVyDGM.jpeg?fit=594%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"