Rupp Baase Pfalzgraf Cunningham will become Rupp Pfalzgraf on January 1, 2023. A recent interview with Buffalo Business First describes the bittersweet opportunity as two of our founding partners retire from the firm and we look at the strategic plan for the future.
Two of four founding partners at one of Buffalo’s largest law firms will retire Jan. 1, as part of a strategic succession plan to bring younger equity partners aboard.
With that change, Rupp Baase Pfalzgraf Cunningham will change its name, to Rupp Pfalzgraf. R. Anthony Rupp III and David Pfalzgraf Jr. will stay on as founding partners and Jeff Baase and Tom Cunningham will retire at the end of the year.
The four started the firm in 2000 and grew it to today’s 65 attorneys and 10 equity partners. The firm, which is the fifth largest in Buffalo, is headquartered in the Liberty Building and has five other offices across the state.
“We were going to build a different kind of law firm,” said Pfalzgraf, managing partner of the firm. “And we’re still up-and-coming and kind of scrappy. We don’t have the 100-year history that a lot of the firms around here have.”
When the two retirements go into effect, the firm will add four more equity partners — Benjamin Burge, James Graber, Aaron Knights and Phillip Oswald.
“We realized we had a larger firm that would survive beyond our retirements, and we didn’t all want to retire at the same time,” Rupp said. “All of our new four equity partners are younger and will be practicing law long after Dave and I have retired. We want to leave it in a strong position.
Rupp and Pfalzgraf said they plan to stay on with the firm for the next five to 10 years and to spend that time preparing it for a future without its founding partners.
Read the entire article written by Katie Anderson – Buffalo Business First