Brian Henebry, then with the law firm Carmody & Torrance L.L.P., was optimistic in a statement just ahead of a January merger with Sandak Hennessey & Greco L.L.P.
“Our firm has been looking for the right match within Fairfield County and we knew this was it,” he said in December. “Both firms share the same focus: achieving the clients”™ objectives, getting results and doing so efficiently at a reasonable cost.”
Nearly three months on, his words and a request for a reaction to them completed their arc and landed back on his desk.
“It”™s been smooth,” said Henbry, now managing partner of Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey L.L.P., the expanded New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury and Southbury law firm. “Very smooth. It was important to create one firm and we”™ve done that. One of the big motivators in the merger was our ability (at SHG) to provide a wide variety of corporate and transactional services in southern Fairfield County; that was not a region where Carmody had a lot of experience.”
Henebry spoke to the merger and to the company culture and its future recently by phone, along with partners William J. Hennessey Jr., Jay H. Sandak, D. Charles “Chuck” Stohler and Ann H. Rubin. Ann H Zucker, the firm”™s assistant managing partner, was not on the call, but Henebry said any discussion of the two firms merging would be incomplete without her. She was “an integral part of the merger,” he said.
Sandak agreed. “We”™ve had a history of extremely sophisticated clients,” he said. “This combination allows us to introduce additional services. There”™s an improved comfort level now with the greater depth of services.”
The move strengthened the local presence of the larger Carmody & Torrance, with its roots in Waterbury. Sandak Hennessey & Greco brought 15 attorneys to the merger, upping the combined firm”™s lawyer total to 77.
Kevin Greco of SHG will lead the combined firm”™s personal injury practice area, continuing to serve clients statewide.
The partners weighed in on other areas of focus from among some 30 in which the firm possesses specific expertise, including insurance.
Rubin could serve as a poster lawyer for insurance. She has spent 30 years as an attorney, 20 of those with Carmody”™s New Haven office and more recently in Waterbury. She has served as counsel for insured professionals, handling coverage disputes. She has what she termed “extensive experience” in re-insurance fracases, many of which are settled by arbitration, but during which Rubin keeps her litigation background ”” “tried and true trial skills””” at hand. And she has “significant experience” representing insurance brokers and their firms across an easily imagined sea of insurance disputes (A insures B, which is owned by C and its affiliate D”¦) and their myriad outcomes. Representations span municipal settlements, asbestos cases, corporate fraud and death claims.
As for real estate, another enormous local market, said Hennessey, “We have accomplished by way of combining our firms a well-rounded transactional real estate division that can handle all the issues of a complex deal. Prior to the merge, we didn”™t have all those resources.”
The firm boasts a number of attorneys with decades of litigation experience. They often pursue alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, wherein the “overwhelming majority” of cases settle their disputes. Sandak called ADR “unique and very important in today”™s climate.”
ADR notwithstanding, Henebry and others had spent the three previous Saturdays pursuing old-fashioned trial skills for the firm”™s younger associates. “It”™s important to understand the law and to understand our clients,” Henebry said. “That”™s the sort of attitude and approach we bring to the law. We enjoy the training.” For a reading assignment he offered “A Civil Action,” the 1996 Jonathan Harr telling of Massachusetts pollution case. (Sandak”™s homework included “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In,” by Roger Fisher, Bruce Patton and William Ury.)
Henebry said members of the firm share values and everyone has begun working as a single unit.
“We are in a growth mode and we”™ll continue to evaluate other opportunities as they present themselves,” he said. “Our attorneys are energized and we”™ve had a great reaction from our clients and from the legal community as a whole. There”™s a lot on the horizon.”
Editor’s note: Â An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that prior to the merger Brian Henebry had worked for SHG, when he had in fact worked for Carmody & Torrance. Separately a quote from Henebry has been updated, at the direction of the author of the article, who said the quote originally and incorrectly used the phrase “an area” rather than “a region.”
