Terrence J. Truax
Jenner & Block LLP’s new managing partner, Terrence J. Truax, joined the firm out of law school in 1988 and has worked at the 450-lawyer litigation powerhouse ever since.
Well, not technically.
In one of Jenner & Block’s initial expansion efforts in 1995, Truax was among a number of attorneys who went on loan for about a year to a law firm in Tokyo.
He called it a network building trip. It worked: He’s represented clients from Japan and Asia ever since.
After a unanimous partnership vote last week, Truax was announced today as the firm’s managing partner, replacing Susan C. Levy. She announced a week ago she will leave the firm to become executive vice president and general counsel at a financial services company and Jenner & Block client, Northern Trust Corp.
His new role will involve the globalization he’s already familiar with.
The firm with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles is looking for a city to raise its first international outpost. Tokyo was among a list of locations — as was Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Paris — that Truax said “may be the next logical step for us,” adding that “we’re still looking.”
“We currently have a global platform. It’s just not branded as such,” said Truax, 53. “Chicago (is) a global city … and as a leading firm in the city, we not only have a national footprint that we’re very focused to continue to build and develop, but we have a global outreach as well.”
Opening an international office and focusing more generally on its global practice is one of three strategy goals Truax identified in an interview today.
The other two are strengthening the firm’s national footprint and broadening its corporate practice, which handles high-profile deals such as General Motors’ bankruptcy and ensuing public sale but remains relatively small at about 50 lawyers.
“We know what we want to do,” he said.
Truax, an intellectual property and antitrust litigator, will assume the managing partner role on May 1.
He is no stranger to leadership roles at Jenner & Block.
Co-chair of its patent litigation and counseling practice, he is also a member of the 11-person policy committee, the senior leadership body which elects the 20-person management committee, of which Truax is also a member and will have a large part in composing in his new role.
Firm Chairman Anton R. Valukas said Truax was unanimously nominated for the promotion by the policy committee and unanimously ratified by a vote of the partnership. Truax said he was approached about the possibility about two weeks ago, deliberated “carefully” and agreed to the assignment.
Valukas said Truax was a “very easy, very happy” choice because he has the trust and confidence of the partnership; he is an accomplished trial lawyer with high-profile clients; and he has the business sense to manage a law firm, which Valukas pointed out is “not a meet-and-greet position” in today’s competitive legal market.
“You have to understand numbers. You have to understand how it is that you’re able to increase profitability without any impact on the quality of what’s going on,” Valukas said.
“Terry, from his own good business sense, and also as a high-end, skilled practitioner with many high-end clients. He understands how that system works.”
Valukas added: “Partners will feel he is empathetic without being soft, so to speak. He understands there are tough decisions to be made. But he’ll make them in a fair way and I think partners will respect that.”
Originally from Miami, Truax graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where then-dean Kenneth S. Broun is a former Jenner & Block associate. Upon Broun’s urging, Truax interviewed with the firm in 1986 for a summer associate position.
“That core ethos of being committed to public service and pro bono sort of screamed out at you,” said Truax, who went on to become a 2007 recipient of the Albert E. Jenner Jr. Pro Bono Award and is a current member of the firm’s pro bono executive committee. “That’s what was appealing. And, frankly, continues to be one of many things that are very appealing about the firm today.”
Truax said it is “really important” that young lawyers at the firm see an ascension like his as possible.
He credited Levy, among other aspects of her tenure as managing partner, for developing a young, diverse management committee. Along with chief talent officer Charlotte L. Wager, Truax said he has been working on a six-month mentoring program for the nine new partners the firm named this year to focus on business development.
“It’s imperative that we continue to cultivate and develop that kind of leadership, and we’re doing that,” said Truax, who like others at Jenner & Block developed his courtroom credentials doing pro bono work in the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Court buildings are where the firm’s traditional strength has been. In more recent years, the firm has developed a reputation for investigating headline-grabbing corporate mix-ups, including the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the ongoing inquiry into General Motors Corp.’s ignition switch recall.
For his litigation-focused firm, Truax said it is “essential that we continue to invest” in building the patent litigation practice, where some of the highest-profile corporate battles have taken place in recent years.
Jenner & Block’s patent group stands at 22 direct members. About 40 lawyers spend a considerable amount of time working in that area.
Truax said he will lighten his practice load as he becomes managing partner. He will have a better sense of how much once he finishes a trial set for the coming weeks in Nevada.
The patent practice represents life sciences businesses including Hospira Inc., Johnson & Johnson; technology companies Amazon.com Inc. and Nintendo Co.; and handles work for industrial companies Dow Chemical Co., General Electric Corp., Schneider Electric SA and Japan-based Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
“It’s a very nice platform. Our big challenge has been scale,” Truax said. “We’re continuing to grow that practice in the next couple of years.”
The firm’s corporate practice has been similarly described: Serving high-end clients, but doing it on a scale smaller than the largest firms it competes with. Truax said the firm continues to view its corporate practice as an area to grow.
The firm wants to build a strong brand across the U.S., Truax said, to help project where its clients will be and where it makes the most sense to expand internationally. He said the “issue is how best to service” the global clients it already has and may represent in the future.
“So we’re taking a very deep, hard look at where to expand,” Truax said.
“We’ve been, historically, a conservatively managed law firm and opportunistic when we need to be. I expect we’ll continue to be conservatively managed. But, nonetheless, we are certainly going to be opportunistic whenever we can be.”