California, meet Frost Brown Todd.
The storied, full-service law firm officially touched down in the Golden State at the beginning of the year following its merger with AlvaradoSmith—a leading California-based, minority-owned law firm with deep roots in the state’s business community and extensive civic engagement. The merger provides the best of both worlds, adding new breadth to Frost Brown Todd’s core practices and industry teams while broadening AlvaradoSmith’s reach and the range of services available to its clients.
The combined firm now includes more than 575 attorneys in 16 offices across eight states and Washington, D.C., with California offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Orange County. Frost Brown Todd also has international capabilities, serving clients in Latin America, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Germany, the Middle East, and North Africa with operations in the U.S.
Nearly a year into the merger, here is what business leaders in California, or with should know about the combined firm’s capabilities.
An Expanded Business Transactions Practice
AlvaradoSmith has long been known for its employment and business litigation practice. With the addition of Frost Brown Todd’s robust business transactions practice, the combined firm can now support California companies’ wide range of legal needs.
Frost Brown Todd understands the unique needs of the middle market: maintaining personal relationships and keeping control of the business as it grows, setting up a board structure that will stand the test of time, and getting your company ready when it’s time to exit, via a public offering or strategic sale.
The firm’s Privately Held Business Team, for example, helps entrepreneurs and small companies grow at every stage of capital development, from seed funding to growth equity financing. At the same time, Frost Brown Todd represents leading private equity sponsors, portfolio companies, and venture capital firms in business transactions—be it handling comprehensive due diligence reviews, negotiating complex commercial agreements, or any number of other matters crucial to getting the deal done.
With an in-depth understanding of the multifaceted issues unique to closely held business transactions, the firm’s attorneys are adept at corporate finance, entity formation, securities, tax, labor and employment, intellectual property, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance, among other areas key to business transactions.
Top-Tier Response Teams
Frost Brown Todd’s response teams can now offer industry leaders in California the guidance they need to navigate emerging challenges and uncertain times.
This was certainly true during the 2023 banking crisis. Frost Brown Todd quickly assembled its Failed-Bank Response Team, a multi-disciplinary group that worked around the clock to help clients plan for the impacts of recent bank failures and the government’s ongoing stabilization efforts. Given the highly time-sensitive nature of the crisis, attorneys were prepared to answer any questions clients had related to stakeholder obligations, vendor contracts, cash flow needs, ability to access deposits and lines of credit, and more.
These teams pay dividends to clients. For a California-based non-profit charter school management company, the firm’s counsel allowed the organization to successfully manage the affected accounts of its customers held by a third-party intermediary. Leveraging extensive knowledge of the client and the banking landscape, the Frost Brown Todd team was also able to recommend a specific banking product and account structure to protect the client’s customers against any future bank failures.
Deep Industry Knowledge, Backed by Experience
Frost Brown Todd is well-positioned to serve California’s fastest-growing companies thanks to its multi-disciplinary approach to several key sectors—energy, financial services, health care innovation, manufacturing, private equity, and technology.
What’s more, as a full-service law firm, Frost Brown Todd’s many practice groups allow it to provide subject-matter expertise covering a wide range of business needs, from commercial finance and employee benefits to real estate and intellectual property.
For example, Frost Brown Todd has deep experience advising manufacturers of consumable goods, large industrials, and innovators in the mobility space. Below is a sampling of matters routinely handled by members of its Manufacturing Industry Team:
- Reviewing, advising, and negotiating contracts and supply and distribution agreements with suppliers, distributors, and customers.
- Handling employment litigation and wage and hour matters; handling labor negotiations and arbitrations.
- Helping with employee benefit issues, including pensions and defined benefit plans.
- Working on employment-based immigration needs, including inbound/outbound visas, permanent resident status, I-9 audits, training, and education.
- Advising and defending product liability cases.
- Counseling on and litigating patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret claims.
- Consulting and litigating environmental disputes at manufacturing facilities.
- Providing real estate consultation and litigation for manufacturing and retail locations.
- Providing bankruptcy consultation for suppliers and customers.
- Reviewing and negotiating executive compensation agreements.
- Assisting in corporate compliance and acquisitions.
An Award-Winning, Data-Driven Approach
As an Am Law 200 firm, Frost Brown Todd brings a holistic, multidisciplinary, and multijurisdictional approach to helping clients achieve their business goals.
Frost Brown Todd is also one of the first Am Law 200 firms to harness the power of data to improve how it manages legal projects. The firm’s Data and Innovation team has a unique blend of skills, including data science and analytics, technology, research, and legal project management. In the first 15 months, the team consolidated firm data into a cloud data lake, implemented powerful visual reporting tools, and populated an experience database to enhance the firm’s delivery of industry-focused solutions in manufacturing, finance, technology, health care and energy.
Recognizing the innovative nature of this approach, The American Lawyer named Frost Brown Todd’s Data and Innovation team a finalist for Best Business Team as part of its annual Industry Awards.
Excellence in Practice, National in Scope
The combined law firm now offers the capabilities and resources of a national firm to clients in California with operations outside the state and even internationally. As AlvaradoSmith founding member Raúl Salinas said, the merger “allows AlvaradoSmith to continue playing to our strengths, just at the scale of an Am Law 200 firm.”