Just in time for a small growth spurt, longtime Valley law firm Gray Duffy has leased a new flagship office, moving from Encino to a Warner Center building.
The firm, which had been in Encino since it formed in 1990, is now on the 19th floor of an office building at 21700 Oxnard St. in Woodland Hills. It is renting the 8,400-square-foot office on a five-and-a-half-year deal, which began in November.
“After looking at this space, and others in different places in the Valley, the Warner Center clearly had two or three potential office spaces that were very suitable for us,” said Mike Eisenbaum, managing partner at the firm. “We liked this one the best. It required the least amount of work and it was already pretty built out. It’s a spectacular view from the 19th floor. Everybody has great views. When you walk in the office, you’re sitting right on top of the Valley.”
The space includes about a dozen windowed individual offices along with a handful of interior ones and two conference rooms — “most definitely” an improvement over the company’s previous space, Eisenbaum said — and also opens up the reception area to be more welcoming to clients. Rent for this location is actually cheaper than its Encino location— that’s because that office was much larger, at more than 18,000 square feet.
“A couple of times when our lease was up, we shopped around to move but it was always just a little too convenient to stay where we were,” Eisenbaum said. “The whole floor was too much space for us. We had been subleasing to tenants and doing that for many, many years. When our lease came up this time, we thought — given that with Covid a lot of people had moved out of actual office space and there was a glut of office space — there was a good time to move and take advantage of the fact that landlords were desperate for tenants. That was certainly the case in the Warner Center.”
The firm — which primarily handles civil, construction and business litigation suits — was looking to stay within the San Fernando Valley, Eisenbaum explained. Its location makes a lot of sense for hosting clients from Northern California and also as far south as San Diego — in part because it is less hectic than downtown or Century City.
There was also a more personable aspect to the Valley that made it attractive to stay, he added.
“I think that people are a little more down to earth in the Valley,” Eisenbaum said. “The same is true in this office space. You see people in the elevator you’ve never seen before, and you say hello. It’s just a much friendlier atmosphere here.”
The firm is also continuing to implant itself in the Valley in other ways. In the past year, Gray Duffy has added three attorneys to its team. One large client has rewarded a recent civil litigation victory with a trove of additional work, Eisenbaum explained, and another major insurance provider responded to a recent presentation with at least eight requests for more work.
That means the firm aims to bring at least one more attorney on board.
“We’re in a bit of a growth mode,” Eisenbaum said.