Quarles & Brady to Celebrate 30th Anniversary in Southern Arizona
TUCSON, ARIZ. — Quarles & Brady LLP, Southern Arizona’s only national firm, will mark the 30th anniversary of its Tucson office on Wednesday, February 19. Joining the Tucson partners and attorneys will be the firm’s new national firm chair Kimberly Leach Johnson, who is one of only eight women leading a top-200 law firm in the United States.
Three senior Tucson partners at the celebration — James Morrow, Craig Kaufman and Susan Boswell — have more than 75 years of combined history with the firm. The original Tucson office was opened by two locally based partners, James Morrow and Dale Pontius, and began operating in June 1984 as Streich Lange Weeks & Cardon. The firm became part of the Quarles & Brady network 10 years later and continues to serve the Southern Arizona business community as part of a network of more than 460 attorneys.
The Quarles Tucson office is recognized for its attorneys’ national expertise in the areas of real estate, bankruptcy, energy & environment and intellectual property law. In looking back over the past three decades, Morrow and Kaufman’s work was integral to many of the community’s major resort, commercial and residential real estate developments.
Much of Boswell’s work is in corporate reorganization, but her leadership is particularly evident in helping the Tucson Diocese file for Chapter 11, the first in the nation to take this step, which is considered a model of a thoughtful and well-planned reorganization process for a religious organization. Boswell is a role model for Quarles & Brady attorneys, particularly women, leading the profession in her area of expertise, serving as managing partner for her firm and balancing all her professional responsibilities with a busy family and civic life.
The firm, however, is itself a model of diversity. Nationally, 37 percent of Quarles & Brady attorneys are women, and Tucson’s office reflects that. Working Mother magazine ranked Quarles as one of the top law firms for diversity in 2013, stating, “Good things await lawyers here, from high-level training programs, multifaceted mentoring initiatives and stimulating Women’s Forum events to a fully subsidized Certificate in Executive Management (via the University of Notre Dame). Women hold 33% of all leadership positions; flexible schedules abound.”
Firm chair Kimberly Leach Johnson will make a special trip to Tucson, to be part of the 30th anniversary celebration at the request of office management. “There are many outstanding partners at Quarles who could lead us forward, but Kim Johnson is a perfect reflection of the firm’s tradition of practice excellence and its progressive vision,” said Craig Kaufman, Tucson-office co-managing partner. “We are honored that she will be here to help us celebrate our 30th anniversary. Sheis an exceptional attorney, who shares our vision that the most important attribute a firm can have is to create value for its clients.”
Johnson, named national firm chair in October 2013, was most recently chair of the firm’s Finance Committee and managing partner of Quarles & Brady’s Naples and Tampa, Florida offices. She continues to serve as a member of the firm’s elected Executive Committee. She is the first woman to serve as Quarles & Brady’s firm chair, adding to the organization’s history of women in leadership roles.
About Kimberly Leach Johnson
Kimberly Leach Johnson practices in the area of trusts & estates. She has extensive experience representing families in the planning of their estates and the handling of affairs after individuals pass away. Johnson was named Woman Lawyer of the Year by the Collier County Women’s Bar Association in 2011 and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She earned her law degree from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, her LL.M. degree from the University of Miami and her B.S. degree from Anderson College.