Spotlight On: Donald Scarinci, Managing Partner, Scarinci Hollenbeck LLC
March 2025 — In an interview with Invest:, Donald Scarinci, managing partner at law firm Scarinci Hollenbeck LLC, discussed how the firm is actively navigating AI-related legal challenges to improve efficiency and client savings. Scarinci also outlined its future plans for competing with larger firms by expanding its size, while also addressing generational shifts in the legal industry.
What have been some of the key accomplishments for Scarinci Hollenbeck over the past year?
Some of the biggest accomplishments we have achieved include a successful year in mergers and acquisitions. We completed quite a few of them last year, which was a positive sign for the economy in New Jersey and the economy overall.
Another significant highlight was our involvement in securing approvals for the tallest building in Bayonne, which is also one of the tallest buildings in the state of New Jersey. This building is located on the Gold Coast, offering views of New York City. This project reinforces our firm’s already outstanding reputation for representing developers with large-scale projects in New Jersey. At the present time, Scarinci Hollenbeck has represented 40% of the commercial real estate development on the Gold Coast.
What shifts have you observed in client demands or priorities over the past year?
Shifts in public policy often drive changes in demand. For example, every four years, we anticipate significant revisions to the tax code. In preparation for the 2005 changes, we have hired additional tax attorneys. Estate plans will need to be revised once the tax code changes. Immigration policy is another area undergoing changes, which has led us to add more litigators. We expect a surge in civil rights litigation and in litigation involving intellectual property.
In addition to these areas, the artificial intelligence space continues to accelerate. There are also emerging issues related to the power grid, electric vehicles, and the transition away from gasoline powered engines. Cryptocurrency, which has been relatively unregulated, is likely to see increased regulation and enforcement, creating new challenges and opportunities. These shifts are shaping the legal landscape, and we are actively engaged in addressing them.
How do you view the work from office trend shaping up given the recent mandate for federal workers to come back to the office?
We are maintaining two key policies. First, we continue to support work-from-home options for attorneys. Support staff, however, are required to come to the office five days a week to assist attorneys.
For attorneys, our policy is more about incentives than mandates. If an attorney comes to the office three or more days a week, they can have a permanent office. If they come in less frequently, they use a visiting office. We have also provided lockers for attorneys who primarily work from home, allowing them to store their belongings and use name tags when they are in the office.
Attorneys are responsible professionals. If they have a trial, a merger and acquisition deal, or a real estate transaction that requires collaboration, they come to the office. We do not feel the need to enforce strict mandates because attorneys understand their responsibilities.
The second policy we are committed to is diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We believe that diversity is a business decision. In a collaborative business environment like a law firm, having diverse perspectives leads to better outcomes for clients. America is a diverse nation, and to succeed, businesses must reflect that diversity. We are committed to maintaining a diverse workforce because it strengthens our firm and aligns with our values.
What are some of the challenges your industry is facing?
We added 23 employees last year. The market for attorneys is never really tied to unemployment rates. It is tied to how much the National Law Journal (NLJ) 250 firms a/k/a Big Law charges and pays their attorneys. For mid-size law firms, this creates competition and difficulty in hiring associates as well as finding quality rising star partners. That was a problem in late 2020, throughout 2021, and into 2022. It started to shift in 2022, and right now, Big Law is at least holding steady. They are doing a lot of internal mergers. Big Law creates associate hiring pressure and attorney hiring pressure on smaller firms, like ours. We are a firm of 70 attorneys, so we feel more impacted by what Big Law does in terms of employing attorneys.
Employing clerical support has gotten easier because technology is eliminating those jobs. When I started practicing law, there were one or two secretaries per attorney. Today, seven to 10 attorneys per secretary is not out of the question because a lot of work can be done through technology and automation to the financial benefit of our clients. We pass that savings to the client, which makes the firm more price competitive.
Big Law has difficulty being competitive price-wise because they are trapped into their way of doing things. The people who run Big Law are generally the ones who have either participated in creating that box or believe in that box and know nothing else. Post-pandemic, we are entering a time when attorneys, like every other entrepreneur in business, must think outside of the box. The pandemic blew up the box, and business leaders need to think outside of traditional boxes to be successful going forward.
What is the unique advantage you offer over NLJ 250 law firms?
Flexibility, the ability to be nimble, and the ability to change and adapt quickly. We can also compete on price. There are certain things that Fortune 1,000 businesses will always hire mega-law firms to do, such as airline mergers or complex technical litigation. However, there are a lot of routine things that in-house counsel can save money on by looking at firms with fewer than 100 lawyers. These firms can produce a high quality product more cost-effectively.
How is Scarinci Hollenbeck implementing new technologies such as AI?
The American Bar Association recently released its model guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence in the legal industry. As soon as it came out, we formed an artificial intelligence committee at the firm to study how we can introduce AI to create savings that we can pass along to clients.
We are doing this ethically, using the ABA guidelines for now. Law has yet to evolve in this area. There are obvious don’ts, such as letting ChatGPT write an article and putting your name on it. However, ChatGPT can provide information or a lead to gather information for writing an article. There are also research tasks that can be purchased through Westlaw to aid in legal research. None of these tools are substitutes for lawyers, gut instinct, or professional judgment. However, they can free you from mundane research tasks so you can spend more time thinking strategically.
Using Artificial Intelligence can offer significant cost savings for clients. For example, document review for trial can be done with a properly supervised AI program, reducing the need for three or four attorneys to work on it for a week. This savings can be passed on to the client, with their consent and knowledge of course.
There are many possibilities with artificial intelligence, and contrary to what many people think, not all of them are bad. AI will take humanity to a different place, just as computers did in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The revolution with AI will happen even more quickly.
What is your outlook for Scarinci Hollenbeck for the near term, and what will be your main priorities, plans, and projects?
Grow, baby, grow.
Size matters, and that became obvious during the pandemic. In-house counsel want the comfort of knowing there are many attorneys at a law firm who can jump in and handle whatever is needed. On the other hand, family-owned businesses have become more price-sensitive and are more focused on cost-savings. They are more willing to make compromises that affect the quality of work.
Our strategy going forward is to become a larger firm and enter the market dominated by Big Law in a more competitive way. Big Law’s prices are out of control, and we have a lot of competitive advantages in that market; however, we need to increase our size. This is a growth year for us. We are actively looking for combinations of practice groups, candidates for mergers, and small firms that have not thought about their succession yet. We are in a generational shift in the legal industry, and succession is a top priority, as well as growth, for 2025.
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