Nashville: The (Legal) 'It' City

There is no single moment that kickstarted Nashville’s rapid growth.

2021 marks my seventh year in Nashville, the longest uninterrupted stretch I have lived in any one place since moving away from home to start college … last century. It is fair to say that I have changed since arriving in Music City.  There are the obvious changes, adding a spouse and four children in my first five years at the top of the list, but more subtle behavioral differences as well.  I have become a bit friendlier and more patient, though 98% of car horns that I hear are still my own. Southern slang has made its way into my vernacular to the point that my phone will now autocorrect to “y’all’s,” though I have never started a sentence “Howdy from Nashville, y’all!” because I’m not an absurd poser.

Yet for all my own changes, the transformation that Nashville has undergone during these seven years has been far greater. Not only do construction cranes seemingly blot out the sun downtown, but the building boom stretches through all parts of greater Metro Nashville. Just a few streets over from my home, well away from the downtown core, a block that previously housed a handful of single-story restaurants and businesses is being transformed into the “finest music performance hall on any college campus in the world.”  Near Vanderbilt, there was a massive excavated lot that stretched nearly eight stories below ground and had laid vacant for so long that it was deemed a lake by Google Maps due to it being regularly filled with stagnant rainwater. But in 2021, the “lake” is no more and a half-billion-dollar mixed-used development featuring penthouse condominiums on the market for more than $2 million nears completion — this is a veritable steal in comparison to the $25 million (not a typo) Grand Penthouse at the soon-to-be completed Four Seasons Nashville. Years ago, the neighborhood just outside of downtown known as “the Gulch” was nothing more than abandoned railroad tracks and The Station Inn. Today, the trendy area is home to luxury boutique hotels, the offices of William Morris Endeavor, excellent restaurants, and The Station Inn.

The city is currently home to more than three dozen tower construction cranes, which is more than you will find in cities like Boston, Phoenix, and even my previous home of Washington, D.C. While I would like to say it was my arrival that sparked this construction boom, the unprecedented growth had started well before my relocation. There is no single moment that kickstarted Nashville’s rapid growth. Some point to the 2010 approval of the massive Music City Center, which opened three years later — and looks like a giant guitar from above. Others will cite the 2012 debut of NBC’s Nashville which beamed stunning images of the city to television sets across the world.  But regardless of when one thinks Nashville’s Big Bang took place, it is hard to overlook the importance of January 8, 2013. It was then that the New York Times published a piece by reporter Kim Severson declaring Nashville the “‘it’ city.” Soon thereafter, more than 100 people were moving to Nashville every single day. The influx of new residents became so significant that local clothing merchant Project 615 started selling T-shirts of a unicorn below the phrase “Nashville Native” (our family owns both a full-sized and onesie version).

The appeal of Nashville was not merely limited to those looking for a new home. Five million more people visited Nashville in 2018 than did just six years prior. Somehow, this seemingly innocuous place in the American South became the bachelorette party capital of the world — while this CNN article is nearly 2 years old, a quick drive around town on an average weekend provides ample evidence that the appeal has not dwindled in the slightest, pandemic or no.

This massive influx of residents and visitors would not have been sustainable if there was not a thriving economy to meet them. For decades, Nashville was synonymous with one industry, music. This understanding transcended national boundaries as even Canadian indie rockers sang over a decade ago of “mov[ing] to Nashville to master the guitar.” But no matter how many documentaries Ken Burns makes on the subject, country music is not enough to sustain a growing city.

Thankfully, Nashville is also home to one of the most vibrant healthcare economies not only in the country but likely in the world.  While again, there are numerous reasons how this came to be, any conversation on the topic should start with HCA Healthcare, the largest for-profit health system in the United States and which was founded in Nashville over 50 years ago — the fifth- and seventh-largest systems are based in Nashville suburbs.  The sheer amount of money in Nashville health care is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that two of HCA’s founders, the father/son duo of Thomas F. Frist, Sr. and Jr., have their family surname name plastered on nearly every philanthropic endeavor in the city — not to mention a U.S. Senate seat for a period of time.

While there are a number of additional native industries, Nashville has also become an attractive destination for entities looking to relocate. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic made working from home a reality to many, thus rendering expensive office space a relic primed for a savvy account to cut, a number of companies flocked to Nashville with its lower corporate, and residential, real estate costs. Global Asset management firm AllianceBernstein is in the process of moving its Manhattan headquarters to downtown Nashville. Even the mom-and-pop outfit know as Amazon (I think I’ve spelled that right) decided to place their slightly Orwellian named Operations Center of Excellence in the soon to be completed Nashville Yards.

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And yet, despite all of this corporate growth in recent years, the legal industry was surprisingly absent. That’s not to say that Nashville is not home to a number of fantastic law firms. Indeed, without these firms I would not be gainfully employed — though the vast majority of Vanderbilt Law grads end up outside of Nashville, and Tennessee more generally, with Texas and New York serving as the top two destinations for the Class of 2020. But there has not been an AmLaw 50 behemoth which has set up shop in Music City. There have been recent fits and starts in that general direction. Pillsbury houses some of its back office staff in Nashville. In 2015, citing the large health care market, Polsinelli opened a Nashville office with two attorneys, but six years later, the office is still relatively small with only 20 attorneys. This is not to say that Biglaw interest in Nashville expansion does not exist. I once had a conversation with the former office managing partner of an AmLaw 10 firm who was very committed to opening a Nashville outpost, but this partner said the firm did not think the billing rates could be high enough to support attorneys’ salaries. But I had long believed that was a mathematical equation that would eventually be solved. When Biglaw expansion came to Nashville, my thought was it would happen in one of two ways: a) the national firm would merge with (read: buy out) a local firm and be able to take their entire client roster; or b) the Biglaw firm would open their own office in Nashville and grow it gradually. To me, it was strictly a matter of when this expansion would happen, not if.

What I thought was an eventuality came to fruition last month when K&L Gates — for the record the firm I repeatedly predicted, to anyone who would listen, would be the first Biglaw behemoth to stake their claim here, due mostly to their massive geographic footprint — announced the opening of their Nashville office. Of the two scenarios set forth above, the firm struck a middle ground, establishing a new office staffed with more than 25 attorneys brought over from some of Nashville’s most established firms.

While I am keenly interested in the development of K&L Gates Nashville, especially whether they will get to the point of hiring summer associates, I am perhaps more curious as to how this impacts the Nashville legal market.  Again, I can see this playing out one of two ways: a) K&L’s opening is a one-off event that makes a temporary impact, only to fizzle out and not disrupt the established law firm pecking order; or b) much like my own relocation to Nashville, this is part of a much larger Biglaw influx. Perhaps not surprisingly, the latter scenario seems more likely. Nashville today seems quite similar to Dallas in the early part of the 2010s. What had been a legal market which boasted primarily Texas-based firms were in short order overrun with AmLaw powerhouses. McGuireWoods, Winston & Strawn, Kirkland & Ellis, and Sherman & Sterling are just a sample of the firms that have opened Dallas offices since 2014. The same combination of an ample client base and a cost of living that would allow $190,000, to say nothing of BigLaw partner share, to buy a lot more than it does in New York or Los Angeles that helped fuel Dallas’ rise seems present in Nashville today.

If this rapid-growth scenario does come to pass, what does this mean for the future of Nashville? Not surprisingly, it depends on who you ask. Not surprisingly, local real estate agents would be ecstatic, but that is probably of limited import to Above the Law readers. For my Vanderbilt Law students, this would be a tremendous development, providing them with many more options if they want to practice law in Nashville. The arrival of K&L Gates alone was enough to prompt some current 3Ls who are all set to practice in other markets after graduation to reach out and see whether I thought there might be some new opportunities in Nashville before too long. And it is not just advantageous to Vanderbilt students, indeed, any law student or even working attorney who is looking for a great city in which to practice law would cheer a rapid rise in Nashville BigLaw offices. Furthermore, partners and even senior associates currently practicing in Nashville might well find themselves to be the proverbial belle of the ball as newly arriving firms are looking for rainmakers and attorneys who can bill a high number of hours to fill out their new offices.  As for native Nashville firms …

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The Dallas Biglaw gold rush set off a massive wave of “mergers” in which local firms were acquired whole by new arrivals. Firms that are not nimble might find themselves under new management this time next year.

Some in Nashville are ready to bury the “It” City moniker.

However, in terms of the city’s legal market, it might be time to bring in a couple more construction cranes.


Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.