On a cold January day, in a tower high above Chicago's downtown Loop, nearly two dozen partners on a national law firm's executive committee gathered to talk about opening a new office.

The attorneys had spent months studying the new city, clients there and firms that served them, managing partner Thomas Fitzgerald recalled.

Finally, it was official: Winston & Strawn, the Chicago powerhouse with 11 offices and more than 900 attorneys worldwide, was headed to Charlotte.

The executive committee announced the decision a few days before the 19-lawyer office opened Jan. 14 in the Bank of America Corporate Center uptown, saying the move would better serve the firm's clients, particularly Charlotte's big banks, Fitzgerald said.

The scenario is playing out more often than ever, with a string of national firms expanding into Charlotte for its banks and businesses and the promise of closer, better relationships with them.

The surge means Charlotte has the power to attract top legal minds. But it also has a downside: Some worry that the influx is smothering local firms and raising questions about how long the city's big corporate clients, faced with a slowing economy, can feed the rush.

Local firms are responding to the changing legal landscape by boosting big salaries even higher, and the city's legal community is abuzz with talk of possible mergers.

In the last year or so, at least five national firms have opened offices in Charlotte.

Now, 15 of the nation's 100 largest law firms, by number of employees, have offices here, compared with three in 1990.

"I'm not aware of any other city that is currently experiencing this much attention," said James Bryant, managing partner at New York firm Dewey & LeBoeuf's Charlotte office, which opened last year. "Charlotte, as a financial center, is gaining respect."

Charlotte has been on the national radar since the mid-1980s, when Winston-Salem's Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and Petree Stockton, which would become Kilpatrick Stockton, opened here.

As Bank of America and Wachovia helped turn the city into the country's second-largest financial center, and businesses such as Duke Energy leaped onto the national scene, others followed.

A Wachovia spokeswoman declined to comment for this story, and Bank of America officials did not return phone calls.

The latest law firms to enter the market are national players with top-notch attorneys who advise clients on areas such as corporate finance and real estate.

While the attention has helped Charlotte recruit top associates, the national firms are also putting pressure on local law firms, luring away their business and employees.

In some cases, national firms have merged with local or regional firms -- which can help the larger firms establish a local presence and the smaller firms stay afloat.

The latest rumors of a merger involve Charlotte firm Helms Mulliss Wicker and Richmond, Va., firm McGuireWoods, which came to Charlotte in 1998. Neither firm immediately returned calls late Tuesday.

"I think, in five years, there probably won't be more than one or two significant local firms left," said Tom Cottingham, managing partner of Richmond firm Hunton & Williams' Charlotte office. "The best work and the best lawyers are moving to the national firms."

Neal Capria, an environmental lawyer and a pioneer in Democratic politics who helped bring his party to power in Brookhaven in the 1970s, was found dead in his Port Jefferson Station condominium Tuesday morning. He was 66.

Capria, who last month began work as an aide to the Suffolk legislature, was found in his bed by his son Justin who came by to drive his father to work.

"He was one of the trailblazers," said Richard Schaffer, Suffolk Democratic chairman. "People should know who he was because he is partly responsible for where we are today," referring to recent party victories in the county and various Suffolk towns.

Capria served as part of the Democratic majority on the Brookhaven Town Board from 1978 to 1982. He was the last elected Democratic town board official until the party regained power in 2006. For the past 18 months, Capria worked as an assistant town attorney, but was let go last month when Republicans regained control of the town board.

From 1982 to 1987, Capria was also a law partner of the late state and county Democratic chairman Dominic Baranello. He continued to share offices with him until 1995. He also served as a counsel to the state Senate minority for five years in the 1980s.

Capria also made his mark as an environmental attorney. In 1991, he won a $7.2-million settlement for 550 South Setauket homeowners who were damaged by a 1-million gallon spill - the largest in Long Island history - caused by leaks in a Northville Industries pipeline.

Brookhaven Supervisor Brian X. Foley, a Democrat, lauded Capria as "very principled" throughout his career. "What clearly came across with Neal was his sense of decency, his concern for his community," Foley said.

For the past four years, friends said Capria had problems with his eyesight, requiring him to use a large screen computer, and make large print copies of documents.

"He was never negative about it and used the right kind of tools," said Mark Grossman, a Foley aide. But the eye problems, he added, "Gave him a real sensitivity to the special needs issue and had him advocating for other employees."

Born in Brooklyn, Capria attended public schools, moved to Freeport at age 16 and later graduated from C.W. Post College, and later Chicago Kent College of Law.

He also served in the Navy and later became a reservist in the Navy. He worked in New York City for several years as a Legal Aid attorney, before moving to Suffolk. He married in 1970 and had two children. He and his wife Denise, divorced in 1994.

"We was a very nice man, who always listened to you," said his son Justin of Holbrook. "Only a few weeks ago, we watched the Super Bowl together. We bonded and had a great time together."

E. Leroy Tolles, a co-founder of the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, which grew from seven lawyers into a nationally prominent firm with about 200 lawyers, died on Jan. 28 in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 85 and lived in San Marino, Calif., and Montecito, Calif.

The cause was cardiopulmonary failure after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, his firm announced.

Mr. Tolles, known as Roy, helped found the firm in 1962 with six colleagues. He spent three decades there, working in a range of fields, including tax law and mining law.

Mr. Tolles was also an investor and partner at Wheeler, Munger & Company, an investment firm. He practiced “value investing,” an investment technique made famous by Warren E. Buffett, and became a wealthy man at a young age, said Charles T. Munger, a fellow founding partner, who is now vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Mr. Buffett’s holding company.

Edwin Leroy Tolles Jr. was born in Winstead, Conn., in 1922 and grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y. He graduated from Williams College and served as a Marine pilot in the South Pacific in World War II. He received his law degree in 1948 from Harvard.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, the former Martha Gregory, and four children in California, Stephen, of Pasadena; Roy III, of Piedmont; Thomas, of Santa Monica, and Cynthia Tseng of Palo Alto; and 11 grandchildren. Another son, Henry, died before him.

Sometimes the growth of a practice comes in unexpected and even unpleasant forms.

Attorneys Gregory and Byron Mills had a fairly quiet family law practice in the heart of downtown Las Vegas for the last few years, handling a variety of low-profile matters.

But the disappearance last year of one foster child and the death of another launched the brothers into a major new practice area: Fighting for compensation for foster children abused while under the care of the Nevada Child and Family Services Division and left without treatment by the state's foster system.

"The system has to change, and so far the only way we can see to do it is lawsuits. Unfortunately it's the only way," Byron Mills said. "There's no funding to help kids abused in the system, and it's been going on for years. They're not getting the protection and the counseling they deserve after something like that happens. In many cases it's simply been covered up."

Their law firm, Mills & Mills, has five active cases against the state, is working on several more and anticipates a large influx of cases as word gets out about what it is doing. The four-attorney firm has spent many man-hours researching and preparing its first cases, one involving the disappearance of Everlyse Cabrera and the other, the death of a baby boy.

The firm can't afford to do these cases pro bono because of its size and the amount of time the cases will take to prepare. Gregory Mills has already spent months preparing the cases the firm has, and legal legwork could last for years.

If it succeeds in the end, the firm stands to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from these cases over the next several years. And right now it is the only law firm in town aggressively seeking out abuse victims in the foster care system, preparing advertisements and public information campaigns.

Gregory Mills (who prefers to go by the nickname Gregor)is leading the firm's efforts, representing the biological parents and missing or deceased children. He is seeking restitution as well as additional information about the care that the children received.

Other cases at this point involve children who have been sexually or physically abused at the hands of foster parents or foster siblings and have not received counseling and treatment.

The firm's initial aim is to get the state to pay compensation up front for children abused in the system.

"We can't just ask for the court to give these kids counseling at this point," Byron Mills said. "The family juvenile court already is tasked with getting them counseling, and it isn't. The money from these lawsuits will go into court-monitored and controlled accounts to pay for counseling until the kids are 18. At that point anything that's left over will go directly to the kid."

The idea is for the firm to be a resource for these children since they have nowhere else to turn.

"The sad part is these kids and their parents don't know who they could report it to," Mills said. "I mean, you can't call (the children's service division)on itself. And these kids are not getting the help they need."

The parents will not be able to exploit the situation because they won't have access to these funds except in cases where the child has died, he said.

"If the parents know their kids have been abused or are being abused they can contact us. But they don't stand to gain from it," Mills said. "Remember these people did things to have their children taken away in the first place. So we're very mindful of that."

The firm's secondary aim is to see the department reformed, fully funded and children protected from future abuse.

Ideally, foster care caseworkers have about 20 kids to evaluate, Mills said. In Nevada, funding for the program is so inadequate that one caseworker may be working with 50 or more children, according to media accounts. These caseworkers are supposed to meet these children in person at least once a month, but there simply isn't enough time. They are lucky to see kids once every other month, Byron Mills said.

"It makes it impossible for them to do their jobs," he said.

If a caseworker cannot see the child, she has no way of knowing if abuse is taking place or likely to occur. And the lack of qualified foster homes has led to children being placed in homes that have not been properly evaluated.

"While doing these types of cases we realized that while the foster system is quick to take kids away from their parents, they're not so good at protecting them once the kids are in foster care," Byron Mills said. "People within the foster system have asked us for help. They have a huge amount of cases and not even close to enough caseworkers and nowhere near enough money to run the program and protect the kids."

The Mills brothers have supported legislative lobbying efforts in the last session, although they haven't done any direct lobbying themselves. Gov. Jim Gibbons has pledged to leave the agency's budget intact while many other agencies face budget cuts in the latest round of belt-tightening. And the Mills brothers hope that something will occur in the 2009 Legislature to bring additional funding to the program.

In the meantime, they plan to use the only means they have of persuading lawmakers that fully funding foster care programs is in the state's best interest.

"Just like a large corporation, until it hurts them in the wallet, they're not gong to do anything," Mills said. "It's our goal to hit them so hard and so repeatedly that they're forced to deal with the problem and increase the funding. We hope that in the future we don't have to do this anymore because the problem won't exist."

At the same time, the brothers are urging their colleagues in the legal profession and the business community to get more involved in the issue. They are encouraging lawyers and businesspeople to lobby legislators and to participate in the Court Appointed Special Advocate program, which provides volunteer advocates for abused and neglected children going through the foster care system.

The Mills are also spreading the word about the dire need for foster parents. There are too few foster parents anyway, but even fewer from the professional and business community, and the more good homes foster children have to go to, the better off everyone will be, they said.

"Ultimately this comes out of all our pockets," Byron Mills said. "And if this problem grows, this burden will grow for everyone and in myriad ways."

Bill Brewer works in a high-rise office, wears fine suits and lives in a Dallas mansion with nine bathrooms and six fireplaces -- the rewards for a lawyer called driven, tireless and an attorney who got his start in the region using "Rambo-style" tactics in the courtroom.

While he has taken on some of the region's highest profile and most lucrative cases, he has a soft spot for what he views as the underdog, most recently illegal immigrants.

At no cost to his clients, the 55-year-old Brewer has thrown the huge resources of his firm, Bickel & Brewer, behind court battles with Farmers Branch and Irving, cities that have taken strong stances against illegal immigration.

He believes that Texas needs to be more inclusive given the state's inevitable future of a Hispanic majority.

"How we are going to treat each other in the next decade and really for the rest of our time, it's really an issue that everyone should be thinking about," he said. "It is inappropriate for Farmers Branch or any other municipal government to try to push people who are peaceably within their borders out of their community merely because they don't want them there."

He frustrates his opponents, who see him as a roadblock to the will of most residents. To his clients, he's a determined advocate for good causes.

"He's an incredible person. He's really accessible. Everybody that works with him can tell you that," said Guillermo Ramos, a plaintiff in one of the Farmers Branch cases. "Once he and his law firm get behind something ... they all seem to be united, they all seem to back each other."

Local controversies

Like many on his side of the immigration debate, Brewer skips over the distinction between legal and illegal immigration and refers to Farmers Branch's actions as anti-Hispanic.

Farmers Branch City Council members have repeatedly and emphatically said their actions are aimed at illegal immigrants, not Hispanics.

The council voted unanimously in 2006 to ban illegal immigrants from renting apartments in Farmers Branch, a decision voters overwhelmingly endorsed in May. But the city cannot enforce the ban because of lawsuits, including Brewer's, filed in federal court. Brewer's suit represents Farmers Branch apartment owners and says the ban should be scrapped because it places unfair burdens on apartment owners, who must verify whether tenants are legal U.S. residents. Brewer also argues that the federal government -- not local governments -- should enforce immigration laws.

In the case, filed in state court with Ramos as the plaintiff, Brewer says that the council broke the Texas Open Meetings Act by holding closed-door meetings before it voted for the rental ban.

More recently, Irving has made national news for its Criminal Alien Program. The program, which refers suspected illegal immigrants in the Irving Jail to federal immigration authorities, has resulted in the deportation of more than 1,700 people since it began in September 2006.

The program sparked large anti-deportation demonstrations in September and October in Irving. Brewer quickly followed with a lawsuit against Irving aimed at forcing the city to elect council members by districts rather than the current practice of electing council members citywide. The districts, if created, would help Hispanics have a better chance of winning seats, he said.

Irving Mayor Herbert Gears said he does not know Brewer but believes that the Dallas lawyer's vision for Irving is wrong. Gears said single-member districts would not guarantee minority council members.

"If you dig further into the numbers, turnout is low in minority communities in Irving," he said.

'Rambo' tactics

Brewer usually takes on cases for the rich -- he charges $1,050 an hour. He's won many multimillion dollar verdicts, including a $115 million judgment for a breach of an office tower lease agreement.

He grew up in New York where he sometimes got to visit the United Nations because his dad had an office job there. He said his father encouraged him to read and later encouraged him to study law.

Brewer graduated from Albany Law School in New York in 1977 and is now on the school's board of trustees.

He practiced law in New York for several years before being recruited by a Dallas firm.

In 1984, he founded Bickel & Brewer in Dallas with John Bickel, a West Point graduate. Bickel & Brewer's reputation in its first few years was mostly for "bare knuckles litigation" and "Rambo" tactics, according to newspaper and law journal articles from the late 1980s.

A 1988 article in The Texas Lawyer cited depositions in which Brewer confronted other lawyers with comments such as, "Grow up, will you?" and "It's amazing to me that anybody would get out of law school and not know how to elicit this testimony."

The firm was known for incredible stubbornness, and some Dallas lawyers still complain bitterly in private about Bickel & Brewer's clients refusing to answer straightforward questions during depositions.

"Bickel & Brewer somewhat became the poster child for that practice of law. Now they're past that," said Fred Moss, a law professor at Southern Methodist University. "They haven't had that reputation for many years."

Despite court fines levied against Bickel & Brewer at the time, Brewer defended the firm's actions, saying that was how law was practiced then.

"When the process allowed lawyers to get aggressive with each other, they did," Brewer said in a recent interview at his firm's 48th floor offices in downtown Dallas.

'Relentless'

Brewer and his seven partners run a firm with 35 attorneys and pride themselves on "zealous advocacy" for their clients.

"He's probably one of the most intense individuals you have ever met," said Curtis Graves, an attorney who used to work at the firm.

Graves said Brewer demanded excellent work and sometimes showed an "explosive" temper to get it.

Stephen Hollern, a Fort Worth resident who worked with Brewer in 2002 on a case against Fort Worth's plans for a publicly funded hotel, thought Brewer had incredible energy and noticed that he had a small gym attached to his office.

Brewer lifts weights regularly, runs, rows and has a group over to his house every Monday night to play basketball.

Many who come to play are from the firm.

"They're persistent, they're relentless and they're committed to achieving results for their client," Dallas attorney Robert Witte said. "They play on a big stage. They have a reputation that in some ways is probably well-deserved."

While accustomed to handling multimillion-dollar cases, the firm opened a "storefront" in south Dallas in 1995 for people who could not afford legal services. Bickel & Brewer says it has offered more than $25 million in free legal services.

Dallas attorney Adelfa Callejo said that is why she recently approached Brewer about suing Irving.

"They take on these difficult cases, these very unpopular cases because Bill Brewer believes that he can make an impact in the community," she said. "These cases are very expensive to finance, but he's always been willing to take them on, and he has prevailed."

Attorney Kristi Motley directed the storefront in 2003 and said she never saw the firm turn away people looking for help.

Federal and state records show Brewer is a frequent campaign donor to Democrats and Republicans. He said he supports candidates based on their character.

He supported George Bush for president in 2000 and said he now supports Hillary Clinton.

Brewer said he wanted to debate attorney Tim O'Hare, the Farmers Branch City Council member who proposed the anti-illegal immigration measures, but O'Hare would not debate him.

O'Hare said he believes it would be unwise to debate someone who is suing his city, but declined further comment.

'I was wrong'

Brewer sometimes underestimates his opponents.

When his firm led a petition drive to put the Farmers Branch rental ban on the city ballot, he said, he was certain that voters would "overwhelmingly" strike down the ordinance.

But Farmers Branch residents voted by a 2-to-1 margin in favor of the rental ban.

"Why did I misread it? I was wrong. I misjudged our ability in that period of time to convert people from one point of view to another," Brewer said. "I also misjudged, to be honest with you, my own personal ability to carry that debate. ... I still believe we can convert a majority of people in that community."

Farmers Branch resident Tom Bohmier criticized Brewer's petition drive at the time, saying that people were not reading the full statement about the petition's purpose as required.

Bohmier said he still disagrees with Brewer and believes that the petition was mishandled. But he gained some respect for Brewer as he watched him from a distance.

"He's very charismatic. People see that he's a likeable guy," Bohmier said. "I wish he was on our side."

Online: www.bickelbrewer.com

High-profile cases

Attorney Bill Brewer and his firm Bickel & Brewer are well-known to many in North Texas for cases that affect local government and development.

Last year, Bickel & Brewer represented a terminal owner at Dallas Love Field, arguing that expanding the airport's passenger traffic derailed a pending sale of his client's terminal. The increased passenger traffic was allowed, but Brewer continues pressing the case in court. He says Dallas should pay his client, Love Field Terminal Partners, the value of the terminal -- $100 million -- when they seize it.

In 2002, the firm represented downtown Fort Worth hotels and led a petition drive against building a publicly funded hotel there. The petition prompted the Fort Worth City Council to scrap the idea.

Brewer successfully sued the Dallas school district in 2001 for violating the Texas Open Meetings Act. A judge found that the school board was illegally keeping the public from discussions about redistricting. Brewer released embarrassing transcripts of the closed meetings to the public. He said he intends to do the same if he beats Farmers Branch in his current lawsuit alleging that city's violation of the open meetings law.

Douglas V. Bartman has joined
Cleveland-based McDonald Hopkins LLC as a Member in the firm's Litigation
Department. A practicing attorney for more than 14 years, Bartman focuses
his practice on employment, construction and commercial litigation.

   Bartman counsels owners, developers, and contractors concerning
construction contracts, disputes during construction, and the litigation
and arbitration of construction claims after project completion. He defends
employers in state and federal courts and administrative agencies against
claims of federal and state labor law violations, including age, race,
disability, and sexual discrimination and harassment. In addition, Bartman
litigates other civil matters at the trial and appellate levels in both
state and federal courts. Beyond construction, Bartman represents clients
in a wide range of industries, such as manufacturing, healthcare, venture
capital, and retail.

   "We are very pleased to have Doug Bartman join McDonald Hopkins," said
William J. O'Neill, managing member of the Litigation Department. "Doug's
experience in construction, employment and commercial litigation is an
excellent fit for our clients." A frequent speaker on employment issues to
employers across the country, Bartman is licensed in Ohio, Illinois and
California, and is a member of the American, California, Ohio, and
Cleveland Bar Associations. A 1989 graduate of the University of Michigan,
Bartman received his J.D. from the Hastings College of Law at the
University of California in 1993.

   Douglas V. Bartman can be reached at 216.348.5839 or
dbartman@mcdonaldhopkins.com .

   About McDonald Hopkins

   With more than 130 attorneys in Cleveland, Chicago, Columbus, Detroit,
and West Palm Beach, McDonald Hopkins is a full-service firm focused on
business law, litigation, restructuring, and estate planning. The president
of McDonald Hopkins is Carl J. Grassi, who was elected in 2007. More
information about McDonald Hopkins can be found at http://www.mcdonaldhopkins.com

James F. Graham, 54, of Jenkintown, a defense litigation lawyer and a partner in Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin, a firm for which he managed the Cherry Hill and Roseland, N.J., offices, died of lung cancer Nov. 17 at his home.

"The lung cancer diagnosis in June came out of the blue," said Joe Santarone, a colleague and friend. "In his later years, Jim ran marathons. He smoked only for a while in the late 1970s, when he managed his grandfather's pub in the Northeast, Graham's Pub."

Mr. Graham was born in the Summerdale section of Northeast Philadelphia into a tight-knit family of six children. He graduated from Father Judge High School in 1971.

After he married Susan Weitzman in 1975, the couple moved to San Diego, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1985 from the University of California.

They moved to Jenkintown, and Mr. Graham earned a law degree in 1988 from Widener University. He then joined Marshall Dennehey. For years, he opened and managed offices for the firm in Western Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio and Florida, a total of 18.

Since 2002, Mr. Graham had managed the Cherry Hill office with 100 employees and the Roseland office in North Jersey. The Philadelphia Business Journal reported that the firm, with 380 lawyers, was the fastest growing in the Philadelphia region in the 1990s.

For two decades, Marshall Dennehey handled general liability cases, such as truck accidents, for Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., which formerly published The Inquirer.

"My father was a generous, big-hearted man," said his son, Colin, a second lieutenant in the Marines stationed in Japan. "When I played rugby at Catholic University, at least twice a week he jumped in his car to drive to D.C. for games. Then he took the whole team of 25 guys out to dinner."

Mr. Graham was unpretentious and often gave anonymously to those in need. "He gave money to a homeless man in Center City, and then took him to a shoe store and bought him a nice pair of shoes," his son said.

"Literally hundreds of friends came to his funeral services," Santarone said. "I gave the eulogy, and it was the hardest closing I ever had to do."

In addition to his son and wife, Mr. Graham is survived by a daughter, Susan Graham, a brother, and four sisters.

A Funeral Mass was said Nov. 24. Donations may be sent to the Breathing Room Foundation, Box 287, Jenkintown, Pa. 19046.