Law Firm Snell & Wilmer Inks Expansion Lease in Southern California

One of the largest law firms in the Western U.S. has expanded its office footprint in Orange County, Calif., to create one of the county’s largest law firm lease deals of the year. 

Snell & Wilmer has signed for 57,326 square feet across three floors at the 21-story Plaza Tower at 600 Anton Boulevard in Costa Mesa, Calif. JLL (JLL)’s Kevin Bender and CBRE (CBRE)’s Charles Nixon represented Snell & Wilmer in the deal, while Cushman & Wakefield (CWK)’s Robert Lambert and Rick Kaplan represented the landlord, an affiliate of Costa Mesa-based developer C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, property records show. 

Snell & Wilmer has occupied its current 53,005-square-foot office at Plaza Tower since 2004, though the firm established its Orange County presence in 1989. The new lease expands the firm’s office footprint by 4,321 square feet, or about 0.9 percent.

“Our firm wanted to remain in this location because we value our 20-year relationship with the Segerstrom family, and the quality of the greater South Coast Plaza area and the building itself,” Jon Frank, a partner at Snell & Wilmer, said in a statement. The law firm claims to have more than 500 attorneys in the U.S. and Mexico and is ranked 110th largest in the U.S. by the National Law Journal.

While notable, Snell & Wilmer’s lease falls short of its neighbor, Los Angeles-based firm Latham & Watkins. Latham & Watkins in the second quarter of this year signed a renewal lease for nearly 66,000 square feet at 650 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, dubbed Center Tower, according to a recent market report by Cushman. C.J. Segerstrom also owns Center Tower, which is in the same block as Snell & Wilmer’s Plaza Tower.

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.