Law firm plans move to county after over 30 years downtown

Timothy A. Dachille and Associates will move out of the 20 S. Charles Street building for office space in Hunt Valley later this summer.

A law firm that has been headquartered in downtown Baltimore for more than 30 years is moving to the county.

Timothy A. Dachille and Associates recently signed a lease to move its 20 employees into a 6,500-square-foot office in the Executive Plaza office complex in Hunt Valley. The firm hopes to move into the new space by the end of the month after spending the last decade at 20 S. Charles St. Dachille and Associates specializes in personal injury, workers compensation and traffic cases and has been headquartered in the city’s central business district since its founding in 1993.

The law firm is the latest tenant to move out of 20 S. Charles, which changed hands in April. New owners put the building up for auction last month, though it failed to sell.

Fraser Dachille, a partner at Dachille and Associates and the son of the firm’s founder, said the new office is about 300 square feet larger and will help attract new talent. The firm has been in growth mode, doubling its attorney count to four over the past five years. Dachille expects that growth to continue after the firm doubled its marketing spend and saw an increase in clients. He expects to hire three or four more support staff at the new office this summer to help with the influx of new business.

“We were around half the size in terms of headcount, client volume and results when I joined the practice in 2012, and we are still on an upward trajectory,” Dachille said. “I’m basically out of space to put new employees at this juncture, and we have the intent to bring on additional staff after we move into the new space.”

Fraser Dachille is a partner at Timothy A. Dachille and Associates.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dachille said it was unlikely the firm would have considered leaving the central business district. The firm liked being close to the courthouse and clients often wanted to meet attorneys in person. Now, many more clients want to meet virtually.

Client habits weren’t the only factor that changed over the past decade. Dachille said changes in the central business district and the “loss of foot traffic” downtown also played a role. The condition of the 20 S. Charles building has also declined over the years, he said. For the past three years, one of the main glass panels in the building’s lobby has been broken and covered by plywood.

“The building itself was a motivation,” Dachille said. “You don’t want broken glass being the first impression a client gets.”

Dachille started looking for new office space in the central business district about 18 months ago. After six months of searching, he began exploring spaces in Baltimore County as well. Cost ended up being the deciding factor for the move to Hunt Valley. Dachille said rent in the county “came in at two-thirds of the cost” of many of the buildings his firm looked at downtown. Executive Plaza is owned by Hill Management Services and has been restocking with tenants lately, including signing Apex Tool Group and Let’s Tap In Marketing earlier this year.

Dachille and Associates has also undergone a lot of change over the past few years. Timothy Dachille, Fraser’s father, ran the office as a solo practitioner for decades before Fraser joined the firm in 2012. The firm added a third attorney in 2021 and then a fourth attorney more recently.

Fraser Dachille was named partner a few years ago and has been trying to bring the law firm into the 21st century. Dachille and Associates launched social media accounts and started placing more ads online, including with Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers service.

“The goal is to have a presence on social media because it seems like all the other firms do these days,” Dachille said. “It seemed like a hole for us when it came to visibility.”

Source: Baltimore Business Journal