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For a guy like William H. Caffee, having an office in the staid World Trade Center in downtown Portland isn't cool enough.
Instead, he's ready to slip on a Hawaiian shirt, send out party invitations and celebrate his impending move to the 24th floor of the ultra-wired, techno-hip Fox Tower.
But Caffee is no dot-com wunderkind. He's a corporate finance lawyer.
More significantly, he's a partner in the Portland office of White & Lee, the region's newest high-tech law practice and the first entry of a Silicon Valley law firm into the metropolitan area.
The presence of White & Lee is the latest development in an Internet-inspired boom among Portland-area law firms that specialize in technology and emerging-growth clients.
The business is coming not only from local technology start-ups but also from out-of-state companies that can't get the time of day from swamped Silicon Valley lawyers.
So far, there's room for everyone in a growing Portland market.
"I don't think we're going to be overloaded soon," said Jere M. Webb, who oversees 22 lawyers in the eBusiness Practice Group of the venerable Stoel Rives firm in Portland. "The problem now is hiring enough lawyers to get the work done."
Since August, White & Lee has picked up clients such as Labtec, a company based in Vancouver, Wash., that makes computer speakers, headsets, microphones and other consumer electronics accessories.
"We've been just swamped ever since we got in there," said Caffee, one of six lawyers hired from Portland's Dunn Carney Allen Higgins & Tongue to staff White & Lee's new office.
Start-up companies are turning to White & Lee and other law firms, looking for a set of skills that go beyond traditional corporate law: corporate finance for raising money, securities law for going public, intellectual property for defending trademarks and patents, and executive compensation for setting up stock option plans. They're also looking for advisers with connections to venture capital, with business acumen and with the ability to execute at Internet speed.
In Portland, those skills have come together at a handful of full-service law firms that have built loyal followings among technology and emerging-growth companies. High-tech lawyers and clients name Ater Wynne, Black Helterline, Perkins Coie, Stoel Rives and Tonkon Torp among the most sought after. Other full-service firms with more traditional business clients, such as Miller Nash and Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, are ramping up their efforts to reel in high-tech business clients.
The eBusiness Practice Group, perhaps the biggest Internet law group in town, boasts a client list that includes e-mail marketer @Once, consumer retailer Cameraworld.com, Internet provider EasyStreet Online Services and ad agency eyescream interactive.
Webb tries to keep the eBusiness group in step with clients by offering a snazzy Web site, an office ping-pong table and the group's supercool status symbol: custom, black varsity jackets with a Stoel Rives eBusiness crest.
"We were trying to think how to get away from gray flannel suits," said Webb, tieless in his black turtleneck sweater.
The casual clothes are more than window dressing. Webb and his counterparts at other firms said tech clients are looking for attorneys who can fit in and become core team members. Mature companies, in contrast, he added, usually just need someone to take legal assignments.
Young companies need a lawyer "who's a bit of a business coach, a bit of a counselor," said Donald L. Krahmer Jr., head of the emerging-business practice at Black Helterline, which also is moving into the Fox Tower next year.
"We tend to work with folks who want their lawyer to be part of the strategic thinking," agreed William C. Campbell, who heads the emerging growth practice at Ater Wynne.
Those clients range from BigWake.com, a boat-sales Web site started as a personal passion by Oregon entrepreneur Adrian Russell-Falla, to Network Elements, a Beaverton optical networking company backed by $23 million in venture capital from the Silicon Valley.
Brendan R. McDonnell, who leads Tonkon Torp's technology practice, said Portland law firms don't compete with one another so much as they compete against the glitter of Silicon Valley firms.
"People like the panache of being represented by a Valley firm," said McDonnell, formerly a lawyer with high-tech behemoth Brobeck Phleger & Harrison in San Francisco.
Despite White & Lee's Silicon Valley pedigree, Portland firms aren't particularly concerned about their new competitor. White & Lee, after all, has only 14 lawyers in its Oregon and California offices, a far cry from the 950 lawyers of Silicon Valley giant Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, which expanded two years ago into Kirkland, Wash.
Perkins Coie successfully entered the Portland market from out of state 17 years ago. Attorney William J. Glasgow, now a venture capitalist, opened Perkins' Portland office amid a start-up boom for semiconductor, electronic design, supercomputer and display companies.
"Technology has always been the core of our business," said Roy W. Tucker, who now heads Perkins' technology practice, while Glasgow runs the Portland office of Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group.
After branching out with more traditional business clients, such as PacifiCorp, Perkins is packing its roster with Internet start-ups, such as WebTrends, 800.com, Corillian, etrieve and First Insight.
"We've come almost full circle back to a strong technology emphasis," Tucker said.
Back at White & Lee, Caffee said he's counting on his firm's laser focus on start-ups and its Silicon Valley sheen to bring clients through the door.
"Companies are continuing to flock to this area as a good place to do business," he said, adding: "A lot of companies believe they need a Silicon Valley lawyer to represent them."
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