Pour one out for another midsize firm that just couldn’t hang in an increasingly brutal legal market.
Atlanta-based Taylor Duma is officially closing up shop at the end of the month, capping off what managing partner Marc Taylor described to Law.com as a “great 21-year run.” And while the firm is leaning hard on the ever-convenient explanation of “changing market conditions,” the reality is a little less mysterious, and a lot more familiar.
“We did make the very hard decision to shut down the firm,” Taylor said, pointing to the influx of firms into the Atlanta market. “Sometimes market conditions change… that’s the nature of the beast.”
Taylor Duma has been bleeding partners for years, with departures cutting the firm’s attorney roster by more than half. And once that kind of momentum starts, it’s less a question of if and more a question of when the lights go out.
The turning point may have come in 2025, when co-founder Joe English decamped for Am Law 200 firm Offit Kurman. But now that relationship has become a lifeboat for a number of Taylor Duma attorneys.
As the firm winds down, Offit Kurman has stepped in to offer positions to a chunk of Taylor Duma attorneys (11, to be exact. English described the arrangement as a “strategic transaction,” emphasizing that this is not a merger.
“It’s a much smaller sort of strategic alliance where we are not together in any business form,” English said. “We have found… a good landing spot for a number of Taylor Duma lawyers.”
Atlanta has been one of the most aggressively targeted legal markets in the country, with firms piling in to chase growth. That’s great for Biglaw profits… and less great for midsize firms trying to hold onto talent while competing on compensation, resources, and brand.
Taylor Duma is just the latest firm to get squeezed in that vise.
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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