Appetite for Expansion

Jay Zimmerman’s office, a spacious corner number high above the Financial District, is an odd one for a hotshot lawyer: no shelves crammed with casebooks, no stacks of deposition files. Instead, the head of Bingham McCutchen has decorated the room with only a few family photos and a pair of modernist paintings. Zimmerman gave up the traditional accoutrements of legal practice back in 1994, when he began running the Boston-based firm. When he signed up for days like this one.

Right now, at 3:50, in the middle of another long afternoon, Zimmerman is sitting at his desk, desperate to get off the phone. G. Eric Brunstad, Bingham’s Supreme Court ace, has just been hired to handle a case bound for the high court—a fairly technical suit concerning the tax status of some bonds in Kentucky—and he’s called to bring the firm’s managing partner up to speed. The high-profile case will put Bingham McCutchen front and center, a prospect that excited Zimmerman when he first considered it. “This is one that every single major financial institution will watch,” he said slowly, as if marveling at Tutankhamen’s just-unearthed wallet. But that was five minutes ago. The call should be over. There’s a reporter across his desk and a group of summer associates tossing back Heinekens downstairs, waiting to meet him. As the chat drifts toward the finer details, a pair of impossibly small reading glasses begins to twirl in his hand.

An e-mail dings. Zimmerman glares at the screen. His assistant appears at the door with Catherine Curtin, who heads the firm’s community initiatives, and who was on his calendar for a quick review of Bingham’s philanthropic projects. The glasses—the lenses a half-inch big, at most—are spinning faster, and Zimmerman has moved into a series of desultory “Yep!”s. After hovering for a minute, Curtin walks away. Community involvement update? Out the window. The assistant smiles and follows Curtin to set up a new meeting.

Still on the call, Zimmerman polishes off his second Gatorade of the day (to fight low blood pressure, he says), and considers a question: For efficiency’s sake, maybe the firm ought to open a Kentucky office.