Steptoe & Johnson Lures Away Four Alschuler Partners

Four partners are leaving Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan to open a Century City, Calif., office for Washington, D.C.-based Steptoe & Johnson, which wants to beef up its Los Angeles presence.

Mark Neubauer, Rebecca Edelson, Katessa Charles Davis and Meredith Moss will leave Alschuler on July 1 to start an office that Chairman Roger Warin hopes to expand to 20 attorneys by year’s end.

Alschuler partner Stanton “Larry” Stein said it seemed like a unique opportunity and wished the Alschuler partners well. Partner Marshall Grossman added that Alschuler is healthy and well.

“Our firm has doubled in size in the past few years, and some attrition is inevitable in every firm,” he said.

As they started the recruiting process, they quickly learned that some West side lawyers just can’t be enticed to work downtown.
“They’d say ‘Gee, downtown is a long way away — we don’t want to spend four hours a day in traffic,’” Warin said. “We started thinking, why limit the talent pool with just one office?”