SANTA CLARITA – California's Poole & Shaffery LLP recently added the mother-daughter legal team of Claudia J. McDowell and M. Lisa Odom as partners.
“Our firm continues to experience growth within the areas we serve, and Poole & Shaffery is aggressively adding highly talented legal professionals to our team to accommodate demand,” John Shaffery, partner and co-founder of Poole & Shaffery, said. “Claudia and Lisa built a practice with an excellent reputation in the legal field, so when the opportunity presented itself to combine forces, everyone agreed there was mutual benefit to operate under one roof."
Claudia J. McDowell (right) and M. Lisa Odom
| Courtesy of Mcdowellodom.com
Specializing in business and employment litigation, employment counseling and business transactions, Poole & Shaffery has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County and Walnut Creek, as well as Santa Clarita.
McDowell Odom LLP, which handles business and corporate law, real estate and securities, among other things, also is based in Santa Clarita.
“We had obviously had a relationship with them, in that they were also based in Santa Clarita, and then we were recruited, but there was a good symbiotic relationship already,” Odom told the Northern California Record.
Odom and her mother will be bringing nearly 30 years of combined legal experience to Poole & Shaffery.
“I spent the first five years of my career in two large law firms," Odom said. "The first one was Kirkland & Ellis, a Chicago-based law firm, and then I switched to the real estate group at Sidley Austin, also a prestigious national law firm."
A graduate of Pepperdine University's School of Law, Odom’s experience includes representing large financial institutions and energy companies in negotiations, preparing loan agreements, due diligence, leases and other real estate deals.
McDowell, who graduated from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, has worked in areas of both federal and state securities compliance under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as setting up corporate structure, business plans and private placements.
“One of the things we didn’t do (in their own practice) was litigation, and so we felt that this (partnership) would be beneficial to our clients,” Odom said.
McDowell and Odom believe that the partnership will allow their firm to reach more clients while still delivering quality representation.
“We now have a really solid estate planning, trust administration and probate process that is coming into the firm, as well as extensive business and real estate transactional experience,” Odom said.