January 28, 2025 – Lawdragon’s Meghan Hemingway recently spoke with Rollo Baker on launching trial boutique Elsberg Baker & Maruri PLLC and the firm’s early success. “It's been a very nice financial year, but it's also been a professionally exciting year in terms of the new clients and cases and associates,” says Baker. “The thesis so far has worked out as we were hoping.”
Part of the firm’s success has been attracting top-notch associates. Baker touched on what an ideal associate candidate looks like. “We're looking for people who are humble enough to realize that it takes a lot of work, effort and teamwork to get a good result. They’ve got to be willing to put in that time – and in exchange for that, they’re going to get paid above market and they're also going to get really substantive experience early on. And that latter part is fundamental to the DNA of our firm.”
EBM’s development of associates as litigation generalists is a practice Baker shared about. “The idea is to train young lawyers to be really good trial lawyers first, so they understand how to work with the facts to tell the most compelling story to the judge or the jury,” he said. “Then whatever special practice area comes in, if you have those general trial skills already locked in, it's easier to get up to speed on whatever the area of law is.”
Baker spoke about the benefits of having a lean trial team. “We have a group of five to six people who are a hundred percent engaged,” he said. “If you go with us, you're going to have that core team that is just absolutely focused on getting the best possible outcome for the client and you're going to pay less on balance given the leaner teams we staff. You're going to get great work product, from folks who are focused on winning, and you're going to have a team that is economically efficient – and that's a pretty good value proposition.”
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