Kutak Rock Opens Second Northwest Arkansas Office

The law firm of Kutak Rock LLP has expanded its Northwest Arkansas presence with the opening of a second office, in Rogers.

The firm, which has an office in Fayetteville on Millsap Drive, recently completed a buildout of approximately 2,600 SF on the first floor of the World Trade Center Arkansas building at 3300 Market St. The office officially opened in mid-February.

Kutak Rock, a national law firm headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, opened its Fayetteville office in 2001 with two attorneys. Today, the company has a roster of 35 attorneys in the Northwest Arkansas market, making it the largest law firm in the area by number of lawyers (see list on Page 10).

Terry Pool, managing partner for the firm’s three Arkansas locations in Little Rock, Fayetteville and Rogers, said there are five attorneys who will work from the Rogers office. Bryan Looney, Stuart Hindmarsh, Nick Arnold and Josh Hite will relocate from the Fayetteville location. The company has also hired a new attorney, Miguel Rivera, to work at the Rogers location. Rivera’s prior employment was as general counsel and vice president of Payless ShoeSource, a division of Collective Brands Inc., based in Topeka, Kansas. 

Pool, who is also a member of the firm’s executive committee, said given the company’s large number of clients in the two-county area, opening the Rogers office seemed like a natural fit.

“The Rogers location simply helps us provide more flexible and scalable legal service in pace with our clients’ business objectives,” Pool said in a statement. “And given Kutak’s national reputation and expertise, we can provide far greater depth on legal matters than any other firm can offer.”

Kutak Rock now has 18 offices across the U.S. and employs more than 500 attorneys. In addition to litigation, health care, employment and commercial transaction work, the firm offers legal services in dozens of industries for startup companies, large corporations and municipalities, including public finance, securities, real estate, tax and business law.

The company is represented by 21 attorneys at its downtown Little Rock location on West Capitol Avenue.

The building housing the Rogers location is owned by Pinnacle Center 1 LLC, an entity controlled by Hunt Ventures chairwoman Johnelle Hunt. The space was previously occupied by Basil’s Café.

The WTC Arkansas building is one of several properties in Pinnacle Hills owned and managed by Hunt Ventures, and Pool believes that relationship will be beneficial to Kutak Rock’s planned growth in Benton County.

Pool said the firm has signed an initial lease in the Rogers location for five years, with two five-year renewal periods.

“Further, given the footprint of our landlord [Hunt Ventures] in the Pinnacle Hills area, we are able to relocate to larger space in other properties within the Hunt Ventures portfolio when needed,” he said. “This ability to relocate to larger space provided by Hunt Ventures gives us a unique and considerable advantage with the planned growth of the Rogers office.”

 

Friday Finds New Digs

Kutak Rock isn’t the only firm to make a real estate move in the center of Benton County’s business district. The state’s largest Arkansas-based law firm, which also has two offices in Northwest Arkansas, recently moved into a new space in Rogers.

Little Rock-based Friday, Eldredge & Clark LLP signed a lease agreement to move to the top floor of the 43,500-SF building at 3350 S. Pinnacle Hills Parkway, known as the Parkway Bank building.

The firm previously leased about 3,000 SF of space approximately two miles north, in the Metro Park business development off Horsebarn Road.

Friday’s new space is about 6,700 SF, and the company’s name and new logo have been added to the exterior of the building.

The office officially opened Jan. 7 and an open house was held Feb. 18.

Marshall Ney, a senior counsel with the firm who oversees the Rogers office, says Friday also has the right of first refusal to lease the remaining space of the top floor, which is an additional 6,500 SF, for future expansion. The space was previously leased by Tampa, Florida-based digital marketing agency Triad Retail Media.

“We are thrilled with our new Rogers office location,” Ney said. “We’ve increased our capacity for lawyers from five to 11, and we’ve tripled our meeting space.”

The semicircular building is owned by a partnership that includes The Infinity Group, a privately owned investment holding company in New York City, and local developer Dean Eisma.

The Friday firm now has a roster of 10 attorneys based in Northwest Arkansas — five in Rogers and five at its Fayetteville location on North Futrall Drive in Fayetteville. Ney noted that the Rogers office had just two attorneys in 2015.

The company entered the Northwest Arkansas market when it established its Fayetteville office in 2000. The Rogers office came online in 2006.

Some of the firm’s area clients include the University of Arkansas, the Bentonville School District, Arvest Bank, NanoMech Inc., Pediatric Dental Services and Specialized Real Estate Group.

The Friday firm also recently represented the Pea Ridge School District in drafting the horizontal property regime and cost-sharing agreement related to a $2.2 million building to be shared by administrators of both the school district and the city.

“Each [organization] will have its own separate space for exclusive control, but both will have use and access of the center portion for large public meetings and court,” Ney explained.

Construction of the 15,000-SF building started in February.

 

Bar Bits

There were 25 firms employing a total of 240 lawyers on the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual list of largest law firms. That’s an increase of 6.7 percent in the number of attorneys compared to the previous year.

The list is a round-up of law firms in Benton and Washington counties, with four or more lawyers in a Northwest Arkansas-based office.

Most firms held steady in employment, with only minor changes in their numbers, but the Little Rock-based firm of Wright Lindsey Jennings did see an increase of four attorneys at its Rogers office during the year, a jump of 80 percent and a move on the list from No. 18 to No. 12.

Appearing for the first time on the list is the Fayetteville law firm of Gunn, Mason, Kieklak & Dennis LLP. The boutique firm was formed last year with the merger of three local law firms.

Ken Kieklak and Christian Gunn-Schinker are managing partners of the practice, which has six attorneys and is headquartered in the old Lindsey & Associates real estate headquarters at 3900 N. Front St.