Growing in Pa., Flaster Greenberg Absorbs 5-Lawyer Estates Practice

Jonathan Ellis, left, and Charles Plotnick of Plotnick & Ellis. Courtesy photo.

Flaster Greenberg is adding another Pennsylvania office and bulking up its estate planning practice with its latest acquisition.

The Cherry Hill-based business law firm is acquiring the estate planning practice of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, firm Plotnick & Ellis, effective Jan. 1. While the deal is not a statutory merger, the two firm's leaders said, the smaller firm's entire team will be joining 50-lawyer Flaster Greenberg, including six lawyers, three paralegals, four administrative staff and an office in Jenkintown, which is about 13 miles northeast of Philadelphia's City Hall.

Flaster Greenberg already had an office in Center City, and it is planning to open an office in Conshohocken, about 15 miles northwest of Center City, in the spring. When that office opens, the firm will keep its Jenkintown location, but operate it on a smaller scale, Flaster Greenberg managing shareholder Alan Zuckerman said.

"Especially with Conshohocken, we have viewed that area as an area where there’s a lot of growth," Zuckerman said. The community, he said, includes "our types of clients, and a pool of talented lawyers out in the Conshohocken area that do not want to work in Center City."

Plotnick & Ellis was founded in 1991 by Charles Plotnick, who is joining Flaster Greenberg as of counsel, but it is now led by managing shareholder Jonathan Ellis. Ellis will join Flaster Greenberg as a full shareholder and member of the firm's board of directors, Zuckerman said.

Zuckerman and Ellis said their discussions began about seven months ago, after Ellis reached out to law firm management consultant Joel Rose seeking a merger partner. The talks happened to start around the same time Plotnick decided to reduce his time working at the firm, but Ellis said that was not a driving factor in the decision to merge.

The other lawyers joining Ellis and Plotnick at Flaster Greenberg are counsel Susan Fox and associates E. Marc Miller, Janet Edelstein and Kenneth Pugh.

Ellis said he hopes all his clients will make the move to Flaster Greenberg. While about 80 percent of his firm's work is in estate planning, he said, a number of his clients have closely held businesses and real estate matters for which they could make use of a larger firm.

"While I can handle that work, Flaster Greenberg has a much deeper bench," Ellis said. He also noted that he's looking forward to focusing on his legal practice more now that he will be freed from the administrative side of leading a small law firm.

Jenkintown is the third new location Flaster Greenberg has opened in the last 16 months, according to the firm. It added offices in Princeton and Boca Raton, Florida, and has added eight new attorneys in that time. The firm has also launched three new practices this year: cannabis, elder and disability law, and a formalized pharmaceutical industry group.

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