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It’s been almost two years since Kentucky- and Indiana-based Stoll Keenon Ogden LLC saw an opportunity for growth and took it.
Doug Barr, managing director at Stoll Keenon Ogden LLC, said the firm had a very small office in Indianapolis prior to the merger, with less than 10 attorneys, when it approached Indianapolis-based Katz Korin Cunningham about a possible merger.
“We thought it was a great market. It was a great market for us,” Barr said.
Barr said there’s been a lot of regional firms with a national reach that have come to Indianapolis.
“It’s definitely a market that law firms outside of Indiana and outside of Indianapolis are interested in,” Barr said.
With the merger, SKO increased its presence in Indianapolis from seven lawyers to 45 and, in combination with its substantial and growing number of lawyers in Evansville (20), now has a total of 65 Indiana-based lawyers and 118 Kentucky-based lawyers.
The merged firm now has more than 40 practice areas.
Norris Cunningham is a member of SKO’s Indianapolis office at 334 N. Senate Ave. He joined the firm in 2022, as part of the merger with Katz Korin Cunningham.
One of the co-founders of KKC, Norris is a leader in SKO’s health care group.
KKC wasn’t interested in the merger at first and told Stoll that, Cunningham said.
“But to all of our credit, they were persistent,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham said there were legal specialties SKO had that KKC didn’t have. He said the merger came at a time when KKC was “punching above their weight,” but also at times had to outsource work due to lack of attorneys in certain specialty areas.
Cunningham said the merged firm has been looking to keep work in-house and drive up revenue growth.
He said one area where the merger produced some instant growth was with health care litigation. Cunningham said SKO had some capabilities that KKC didn’t have.
Cunningham said the merger also helped KKC because the firm didn’t have in-depth privacy expertise prior to the merger.
Merged firms compliment each other
Pre-merger, SKO had 145 lawyers, with offices in Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, Indianapolis and Evansville, whereas KKC had 35 to 40 attorneys in its Indianapolis office.
With the addition of KKC, SKO now has more than 180 attorneys and approximately 130 professional staff.
Barr said SKO’s vision is not to become a national firm, but rather to grow organically.
He said Stoll also struggled to serve some clients in Kentucky prior to the merger.
“It’s worked both ways,” Barr said.
SKO has had a significant office in Evansville, an energy practice focused on the Illinois Basin.
The Evansville office has grown since the merger, Barr said.
Barr said the structure of the merger was a little different because KKC was a corporation and SKO was a PLLC. (professional limited liability company)
Also, KKC owned its own building in Indianapolis.
Barr said the merged firm didn’t want some of its partners to be landlords for one of its offices.
“The willingness to sell the building was a big concession from the KKC (firm). And it worked out for them,” Barr said.
He said the merged firm managed to work around any technical issues surrounding the merger to everyone’s satisfaction.
Barr said SKO knew there would be some duplication going into the merger. He said the firm didn’t try to identify all those areas pre-merger.
Both firms had their ways of doing things and the merged firm looked at the best ways. He said SKO was at the end of its life cycle with its document management system and opted to use the KKC document management system.
Barr said SKO post-merger has managed to put people in positions that have made the merged firm better.
Diversity, outreach efforts
Another area of combined emphasis for the merged firm is diversity and community outreach.
According to the firm, when the two organizations merged, KKC had previously created a program called “Classrooms to Courtrooms,” where they partnered with Arsenal Technical High School to create a program to help get more Black and Brown students into the law industry.
This program has been enhanced by the merger, with SKO supporting this and other social justice committee work that KKC already had in place.
The first student who went through the program received a full-ride scholarship to Northwestern University and is a first-generation immigrant on a path to becoming a lawyer.
Cunningham said at KKC, the firm formed a social justice committee, which he chaired, in 2020 with a focus on building a culture of tolerance and respect for diversity.
“We need more diverse attorneys. We need more Black and Brown attorneys. We know this,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham said there were 32 students in its mock trial club at Tech High School in Indianapolis in 2021 and 157 in 2023.
He said SKO is looking to be able to offer the Classrooms to Courtrooms program in other cities where it has offices.
“It really is a broad exposure to the legal industry and the type of professionals that make it up,” Cunningham said.•
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