Kansas City’s Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus, which has over 300 lawyers including nine in its D.C. office, is exploring a possible merger with Shughart Thomson & Kilroy, a firm with more than 180 lawyers.
Polsinelli’s D.C. office is known for its lobbying practice and boasts several notable lawyers including former Rep. Martin Frost (D-Tex.), Edward Eynon, former deputy chief of staff to Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), and Anita Estell, a former President Clinton appointee who served as senior adviser to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Richard Riley.
According to Polsinelli’s spokesperson Ravi Dasari, a merger “will continue to allow the D.C. office to do business as usual.”
The geographic reach a merger would yield for the two Kansas City-based firms would range from the east coast to the west coast. In addition to its D.C. office, Polsinelli has offices in New York and Wilmington, Del., and in the Midwest in Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Overland Park, Kan., Topeka, Kan., and Edwardsville, Ill. Shughart’s offices expand from the Midwest in Kansas and Missouri to offices in the West in Phoenix, Ariz., and Denver, Colo.
According to Dasari, no timetable has been given for a decision on the possible merger.
“There’s a realization. Consolidation in the business is rampant,” said Polsinelli’s CEO W. Russell Welsh. “You got to do it cautiously.”
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