ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010013
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
Seven top lawyers at Woods, Rogers & Hazlegrove Plc. in Roanoke quit the firm Friday to open a new practice a few blocks away.
Woods, Rogers & Hazlegrove, which has been ranked as the state's fifth-largest law firm and the largest in Western Virginia, said it could weather the loss of their significant expertise.
The departing partners, six men and a woman, included the chief attorney of four divisions, those devoted to banking, medical malpractice, insurance, and labor and employment law.
They are E. Dale Burrus, Douglas W. Densmore, John T. Jesse, Powell M. Leitch III, Clinton S. Morse, Kevin P. Oddo and W. Fain Rutherford.
A second Roanoke law firm, Glenn Flippin Feldmann & Darby, lost co-founder Franklin Flippin to the start-up.
The new firm - Flippin, Densmore, Morse, Rutherford and Jesse - is the result of close colleagues and friends who had been talking about starting their own firm finally doing it, Morse said.
By the time they handed in their resignations Friday, they had draw up the needed papers to go into business together, arranged office space in First Campbell Square at First Street and Campbell Avenue and hired a secretary. The firm will open Monday morning, Morse said.
Morse said Heman A. Marshall III, president of Woods, Rogers, had some knowledge of what was coming when they showed up Friday for a scheduled meeting at which they officially notified him they were quitting.
None had any particular problems with Woods, Rogers, although all look forward to developing a unity missing in their former jobs, Morse said.
"We felt we would enjoy practicing in a firm with mutual shared values. Sometimes, in a big firm, you got different values. It doesn't mean anything's wrong," Morse said.
More important, he said, was a desire for more independence. "People like to go strike out on their own. Woods, Rogers is a big firm, and we decided we wanted to strike out on our own," Morse said.
"We left," he said, with those who "wanted to go," adding that others in the firm were asked to join them.
"They have made many contributions to the firm over the years, and we wish them well in their future endeavors," Marshall said in a release. "Changes of this nature are not uncommon at law firms of our size, and it will in no way affect the overall operations of the firm."
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