Q&A on Growth and Leadership with New Thompson Coburn Chair Chris Hohn

Chris Hohn assumed the role of chair at Thompson Coburn, a 400+ attorney national law firm, in August 2024 during a time of sustained financial, geographic, and practice growth. The firm currently has offices in eight locations across the country, including New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Birmingham and Southern Illinois.

The New York office was established in 2021 through a combination with Hahn & Hessen, a premier boutique firm with nearly a century of experience in commercial finance, bankruptcy, workouts, and complex litigation. It now includes approximately 50 attorneys and has expanded its practice areas to provide additional client support on the East Coast, complementing the firm’s long-standing D.C. presence. This move added to the bench strength of the firm’s already robust 50+ practice areas, which roughly balance litigation and transactional work to ensure continuing success.

As chair of the firm, Hohn's new role is part of the long-term strategic plan to transition to its next-generation leadership. Previously, Hohn served as chair of the 200-plus member litigation department at Thompson Coburn and served on the executive committee. Here’s a look inside his plans for the firm’s growth and strategic path as he embarks on his new leadership role.

How did you end up as the new chair of Thompson Coburn?

I’ve worked here for my entire legal career, and over time I became more interested and involved in helping lead within the firm at the practice group and management committee levels.  A year ago, the management committee selected me as the successor to our former chair, Roman Wuller, and Roman and I spent the past year making sure the leadership transition was very smooth for all of our stakeholders. In light of Roman’s great leadership and the smooth transition, I think we are poised for more growth in every aspect of that word.

What are the top priorities for Thompson Coburn this year and beyond?

In a word, growth. But not growth for growth’s sake. My focus is to grow the firm while protecting its culture in preparation for this next strategic phase. So, that entails growth in professional development, leadership training, and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Then comes the growth from expanding our client base and the practices, and most importantly, the people that support those clients.

What exactly does that expansion look like?

While I have a growth mindset as chair, this isn’t about a certain number of attorneys or simply geographic expansion. It’s all-encompassing improvements in our client relationships, our professional development, our technology and our diversity. With that being said, we also plan to add people and practices to the firm’s existing offices and examine other markets that our clients are most interested in seeing us serve.

What are those markets?

We’ve had great success with our expansions in New York and Dallas over the past five years. Next up, the Southeast is of particular interest based on some of our clients’ locations and needs that could benefit from our services. For example, Florida is one possibility for expansion. That would follow our first office in the Southeast in Birmingham, Alabama, which we opened in spring 2024. In that case, we supplemented our very well-respected higher education practice with a group of lateral hires whose practices complement lawyers already at the firm, creating one of the premier higher education practices in the country. By uniting those two groups, we can now serve our higher education clients better as we also move into the Southeast.

How do you select markets for expansion?

We pursue any geographic expansion carefully. We strive to open new offices with a presence, with the criteria of being in locations and practices in growth areas. For example, when evaluating a market, we examine our existing clients’ needs in that location and what future clients in that geographic area might look like. Along with opening our Birmingham office and expanding our education practice, our recent growth in the New York City and Dallas markets were also based on this model of forecasting existing client growth and needs, as well as bringing on new clients in those markets. We want to grow in areas we are good at and where we have a client base already, so we can serve them even better than we do now.

How has the firm’s 2024 been?

2024 is going very well as we continue to benefit from a balanced portfolio of practices. Having that balance means we remain strong even when certain practices may be softer than normal. I’m pleased to say we’re on track for another year of record performance.

Thompson Coburn

Chris Hohn bio