After merger, profit sharing battle leads to Exodus from Akin Gump.

The Los Angeles office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP has lost two key partners in recent weeks, the latest defections from a firm that has been struggling to attract and retain both clients and attorneys.

The departures of long-time labor partner Brian Van Vleck and entertainment partner Steve Saltzman follow the loss of dozens of other attorneys since the 2001 merger with Troop Steuber Pasich Reddick & Tobey LLP, a boutique that specialized in entertainment law.

Former partners say that the problems began with a dispute over how profits were to be shared in the merged office and have snowballed as lawyers have walked out.

"Having that kind of turnover adversely affected the firm overall in morale," said Van Vleck, who left this month to become managing partner of Carlton DiSante & Freudenberger LLP. "For me to develop a client base was very hard at Akin."

Employment at the office has dropped 71 percent since the merger, and only a handful of the original 61 lawyers who joined the firm from Troop Steuber remain. What's notable about the latest departures is that Van Vleck and Saltzman were original partners who pre-dated the merger.

The problems at Washington D.C.-based Akin Gump, a powerhouse specializing in corporate and securities law, are not uncommon. Like other firms, it entered the market seeking what many outside firms do: a share of the legal spending in the country's second-largest market, with an eye on the entertainment industry. But several East Coast and Midwest firms have faltered in finding clients.

Last year, Clifford Chance closed its Los Angeles office after two years. Brobeck Phleger & Harrison LLP shut down its Los Angeles office in 2003, when the entire San Francisco firm folded. The year before that, Preston Gates & Ellis, a Seattle-based firm, closed its office in L.A. after eight years because it could not attract clients.

"If an L.A. office is not doing well, has a history of partner defections, is not growing, doesn't make an overall contribution to the firm, then its partners aren't regarded as heavyweights," said Rick Kolodny, president of Portfolio Group, a legal recruiting and placement firm. "Then, when the firm's executive committee is meeting and saying, 'Where is the growth of our 1,000-person firm going to be?' no one will pound the table and say, 'L.A.'"

When it first merged with Troop Steuber, Akin doubled the size of its local office, which had about 60 lawyers since opening in 1997. A year after the 2001 merger, Akin's local office swelled to 139, ranking among the top 10 in employment in Los Angeles, according to the Business Journal's annual ranking of law firms.

Since then, the office's numbers have slowly dwindled. By March of this year, there were 89 lawyers and the office had dropped to No. 25 among the area's largest law firms. On its Web site, the firm fists 81 local lawyers.

Firmwide, Akin fell to No. 17 among U.S. firms, down from No. 13 the year earlier, with revenues totaling $585 million in 2003, according to the most recent rankings by American Lawyer magazine.

Many of the early departures in Los Angeles came as Troop partners failed to receive a percentage of profits that were supposed to be higher than the compensation of other Akin partners in the L.A. office. One key departure was Tony Oncidi, a former Troop partner who had headed Akin's labor and employment group in L.A. before leaving with three other associates for Proskauer Rose LLP.

The failed merger has continued to cast a shadow on the lawyers who remain in the local office. Several lawyers formerly with the firm say low morale that began with the failed merger has created a negative environment that never dissipated.

"The former Troop people were disenchanted and have long since left, but it has created a lot of turmoil," Van Vleck said.

Many of the recently departed lawyers say Los Angeles received limited support from the firm's Washington office in the form of billable work and clients. Such support was critical, since many of them had to cut clients due to conflicts when they joined the firm. (Firms cannot both represent the plaintiffs and defendants in disputes.)

Some former lawyers said partners in the Washington office would even fly to L.A. to handle work that should have been billed by local lawyers.

Calls were not returned by David Allen, partner in charge of Akin's Los Angeles office who serves on the firm-wide management committee, or Bruce McLean, chairman of the firm in Washington.

Akin has grown several of its other offices. It also opened a new San Francisco office last year, headed by Los Angeles partner Stephen Mansfield, a former assistant U.S. attorney. Mansfield did not return calls.

Saltzman, who worked at the local office for five years until he left in May, declined to discuss his departure specifically, saying only that his new firm, Loeb & Loeb LLP, "is just a better fit for my practice."