Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton opens Salt Lake City office

Lisa Treannie, managing partner of Morse, Barnes-Brown Pendleton, said the law firm is interested in up-and-coming locations to site offices.

Mary Moore
Reporter- Boston Business Journal

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Morse, Barnes-Brown Pendleton has opened its first office outside of the Greater Boston area and has picked what managing partner Lisa Treannie agrees might seem like an unlikely location – Salt Lake City, Utah.

But it was not an unlikely choice for Morse, Barnes-Brown Pendleton, she said, which already has a network in that area. James Kelly and Jeffrey Steele, the two partners who will be running the Salt Lake City office, already had clients in Salt Lake City. Kelly, in particular, has a number of private equity clients there, she said.

“The stars aligned and it seemed like a first good opportunity for us,” she said.

Treannie said Salt Lake City is similar to Boston in its emphasis on technology and life sciences and has both the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, which have technology transfer offices.

Morse, Barnes-Brown Pendleton, which opened its doors 21 years ago, is no stranger to testing out new terrain. Its only other non-Boston office is in the Cambridge Innovation Center, which it opened in 2004. The law firm was the first to take an office in the building with the idea that it would give Morse, Barnes-Brown Pendleton attorneys easy access to entrepreneurs and innovators. Today, there are nearly a half-dozen other law firms working in the Cambridge Innovation Center, all with the same idea in mind.

Salt Lake City is Morse, Barnes-Brown Pendleton’s first office outside Massachusetts, but not likely its last, Treannie said.

“We’re watching tech-heavy areas – up-and-coming areas where we can get into the economy and infrastructure and community early on,” she said.

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