MCD Law Partners merges with Baer Crossey to offer legal services to startups

Fort Washington-based MCD Law Partners, a boutique law firm oriented toward startups in the region, is merging with Center City-based law firm, Baer Crossey.

Baer Crossey, a relatively small firm itself, provides legal services to entrepreneurs in the area.

Christopher McDemus, the founding and only partner of MCD Law Partners, will join the three-man group as Managing Partner. You might know him as VC Deal Lawyer from his blog of the same name. [Full Disclosure: VC Deal Lawyer has been a past Technically Philly event sponsor.]

McDemus told Technically Philly that the merger came about as he was trying to figure out how to grow his practice, with just one full time partner — him — and one part-time of counsel, Rebecca Weaver.

“You reach a sort of tipping point where you have to consciously decide, “Do I keep growing this, and find a scalable way to do that, or do I keep it at the current size which is manageable for a solo,” McDemus said. “There’s risk in the latter and, frankly, sitting still isn’t really in my nature so I decided on smart growth.”

McDemus has a 17-year long list of experience in the world of Philadelphia area legal services, but his interest in startups stems from a personal interest in business.

“I always viewed myself as more of a business person with a law degree. Because of that, I hold close personal relationships with my clients and they very often call me regarding issues that have nothing to do with being a lawyer.,” McDemus said. “As a result, I sought opportunities in private companies and spread my wings as much as possible on the business side.”

He spent much of his early career with a pair of the Center City standards, Cozen O’Connor and Morgan Lewis, before his business interests pulled him into a series of executive roles. McDemus started MCD Law Partners in 2009, but he says he has always maintained strong ties to Morgan Lewis, a large player in the startup community in Philadelphia.

[Full Disclosure: Morgan Lewis was a 2012 Philly Tech Week sponsor.]

While the corporate firm could definitely be seen as a competitor to his own law firm and to Baer Crossey, McDemus says he doesn’t think his work, or theirs, is redundant.

“Neither I, nor my colleagues at Baer Crossey, view Morgan Lewis or any other large firm as a competitor. Startup work is performed by a small, collegial community.  We all know each other very well and many of us have either worked together, or across from the table from each other,” McDemus said. “The change in the legal marketplace over the past few years makes our co-existence wonderfully mutual.”

Moreover, McDemus thinks the mix of corporate and boutique experiences at Baer Crossey distinguishes the firm, he told Technically Philly.

“I would suggest we are one of the few if only shops in Philly of our size that has such a deep-seated, big firm work experience working with the types of clients we service while also holding ourselves out as having and maintaining close relationships with the big firms that also work in our space,” McDemus said.

Although you won’t notice a change in Baer Crossey’s branding, McDemus has already adopted his new title there.

“If every one of us thought that our name belonged on the door, we’d either need a really large door, or we would have to keep our size to 4 or 5 people,” McDemus said.

For the time being, he says that he and Weaver, who is making the move with him, will continue working out of the MCD Law Partners office in Fort Washington, but they are already discussing a move to the nearer Western Suburbs.

McDemus, 42, lives near Doylestown so a commute to the Main Line may be more manageable, but he says it’s also where there is a lot of “tech action” and thus, potential clientele.