Partner Spotlight- Anthony J. Calamunci

Partner Spotlight – Anthony J. Calamunci

I graduated from law school in 1994, starting as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Lucas County, Ohio, where I worked for around five years. Then in 1998, I started at a boutique litigation firm, but left it in 2003 for a larger platform – Roetzel & Andress LLP – where I practiced primarily healthcare and corporate litigation until 2015.

My former firm was a very large platform, mostly working in Ohio and Florida. I was Managing Partner of the Toledo office and the head of the Franchise Law and Healthcare Law Groups on their platform.  I also served as Partner in Charge of the Chicago Office for two years.

There was a group of us wanting to depart. We had discussions as to whether we would form our own platform. Everyone had varying practices; everyone had varying generation dollars. Then, we came across FisherBroyles. After doing our due diligence on the firm’s distributed model, the group decided to join in June 2015.

Who is your typical client?

I built a very specific healthcare practice over the years. We target corporate players on the transaction and regulatory/litigation side in the context of healthcare law – so our clients could be almost any corporate entity.

My clients include pharmacies, health care providers, medical facilities, business owners, corporate executives and in-house attorneys.  My commercial litigation practice is industry agnostic serving many industries.

How would you describe the healthcare law / litigation practice area at FisherBroyles?

The practice I built before joining FisherBroyles was specific to the platform and group I worked with at my former firm. It was one of our biggest concerns: if, and how, to preserve this platform?

FisherBroyles enabled us to successfully transition to their platform, and subsequently expand our existing practice within the distributed law firm model. A major contributor to this success was that I was able to leverage my specialty – leading to me working with 10 to 15 partners now across the firm, on everything from due diligence and healthcare transactions, to building compliance programs up, to assisting with litigation matters. I gained a lot of trust in my practice specialty with the partners via this cooperation.

There has been a great evolution since we joined FisherBroyles in 2015, improving the platform through better collaboration between partners.

How is it different from previous law firms you have worked at?

The idea of being a remote, web-based firm was still novel in 2015. Nonetheless, it struck us as providing the flexibility needed – working with a group of colleagues based in different cities.

The compensation model was an important aspect for us. In traditional law firms, you generate money and then ask for a bonus at the end of the year. The fact FisherBroyles disperses revenue over the pay cycle, and as revenue is generated, has – since the beginning – been a very attractive feature.

Independence about directing one’s own business plan is another crucial difference.

There is no question that FisherBroyles’ model works better than traditional big law models. Today, there is a strong and wide-spread propensity of people to work remotely.

Have you been able to grow/build your personal practice since joining the Firm? If so, how and has the Firm’s model enabled that?

What set FisherBroyles apart was its remote capabilities. Moreover, FisherBroyles had a unique value proposition in enabling us to join as a group despite our size. The firm gave me a flexibility that I could not find anywhere else.

I also felt I could really leverage my skill set into the platform, because there was a need for what I do.

I have roughly doubled my income on an average year, while in good years I have tripled my income compared to my previous law firm.

Additionally, I win a lot more approval processes because I oversee my own marketing and can decide to go a very aggressive route when needed.