News

June 20, 2019

Mission 2020: Tully Rinckey Co-Founders Name New CEO, Announce Equity Partnership Positions and International Expansion Plans so ‘Sun Never Sets on the Firm’

As part of Tully Rinckey PLLC’s strategic plan to change its business model and expand globally, the firm has named current Partner Michael W. Macomber its new Chief Executive Officer, effective January 1, 2020. The change is just one of many that current CEO and Founding Partner Mathew B. Tully and Founding Partner Greg T. Rinckey have in store for the law firm, which currently boasts 10 U.S. offices and another in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 2004.

Tully and Rinckey, who plan to exit the day-to-day operations of the firm in mid 2020 in order to focus on international expansion, determined Macomber was the best candidate to create a law firm culture that is more collaborative. Macomber, an Albany law school alum with a graduate certificate in business from the University of Massachusetts, was originally hired as an Associate at the firm in 2008 and promoted to Partner in 2015.

“Michael Macomber has been an integral part of building and developing high-performing legal teams within the firm and generating positive results for clients,” Tully said. “This transition of responsibility is needed so I and our senior leadership team can focus on international growth by taking us out of the day-to-day American law firm operations, so that we can travel and work in various time zones, growing the firm’s reach around the world,’” said Tully.

Taking on a greater international business role as of January 1, 2020, Global Chief Operating Office Graig Cortelyou is also leaving the firm’s daily operations to assist with implementation of the firm’s global growth plans. Cortelyou, whose replacement has not yet been named (a search will begin later this year), will be assembling and implementing international expansion plans. The firm also will be looking to promote new Managing Partners—an indication that the firm is committed to change and bringing on individuals with new and fresh ideas to support the firm’s growth plans. “We have reached a point where we need additional owners to help us craft and grow this business,” Tully said. “We want our Partners to be fully invested into the business strategy of the firm.”

Since launching its strategic plan, called “Mission 2020,” in 2016, Tully Rinckey PLLC has been implementing its plans to change the business model of the firm. The plan included a successful expansion in Dublin, Ireland that lead to the office opening in July 2018, which Tully saw as an opportunity to serve the middle market in commercial business lines. “Companies that are doing business throughout Ireland, Europe and the United States are coming to us asking for help structuring and growing their businesses domestically and abroad and we are assisting them the same way that we have expanded our business,” Tully said.

The firm will open an office in London in July 2019, and another in Dubai later this year. The intent of the London office is to service and support Tully Rinckey clients who are doing business in Europe and the United Kingdom in the midst of Brexit, while the Dubai office will service multi-national clients with international trade legal needs, shipping goods worldwide, importing and exporting goods. By the end of 2020, the firm intends to trade in four different currencies, servicing a range of clients that operate the same way. By July 2021, Tully Rinckey plans to have offices open in Asia (Singapore and/or Hong Kong), “so that the sun never sets on the firm,” Tully said.

The firm plans to add 10 new equity partners this year and 25 in the next 18 months. In anticipation of equity partnership, the firm had previously transitioned to a service corporation partnership structure to drive tax savings under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. An overhaul of its business model has included growing into corporate practice areas such as tax, immigration, IP and commercial real estates, adding to the number of multiple high-net worth, publicly traded companies and state agencies the firm already represents. The firm also upped its game with regard to business processes, procedures, systems and infrastructure, which has included the deployment of software that supports all offices, and plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) and individuals in lower-cost-of-living locations to perform legal work faster, at a higher quality and on a more cost-effective basis than its competition.

“The firm is undergoing more change in one year than most firms go through over the course of their entire business,” Tully said. “As our current strategic plan comes to an end on December 31 2019, nearly all of the original objectives we set in 2015—which many thought impossible—have been accomplished! I look forward to Mike’s strategic plan and the addition of all our new equity partners.”

For more information about Tully Rinckey PLLC’s management changes, international expansion plans, or to speak with Mathew B. Tully, Greg T. Rinckey, Michael W. Macomber or Graig Cortelyou, please contact Christina Couto at (518) 640-1249 or via email at ccouto@tullylegal.com.