Best Places to Work: The New Philly Workplace

One of the most established law firms in Philadelphia, Dilworth Paxson occupies three stories of the Mellon Bank building at 18th and Market. The entrance hall is opulent enough to make Grisham proud, but upstairs, the grandiosity is replaced by, well, lots of people working.

Dilworth Paxson is a busy place. Secretaries and paralegals walk quickly up and down the narrow hallways, their hands full of important papers. People call out to one another from what I now recognize as “low cubes.” Phones ring, and fax machines hum. Holmes leads me out of his cluttered office down to the lunchroom.

“We have lunch together every Friday,” he tells me, and I am taken to the Friday lunch. There is a long buffet table spread out with every imaginable food group. Everyone who is introduced to me is, according to the colleague making the introduction, one of the best in his field. “He taught me everything I know,” one lawyer says of another. “He’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, humble, and really smart,” another says, describing a partner who’s just stopped by. “Don’t trust this guy,” Holmes says, introducing me to a fellow who looks trustworthy. They laugh.

Everyone who hears I’m writing about great places to work in Philly asks the same question: “What are you doing here?” Then they laugh. That’s a good sign. If they asked that question, then cast their eyes down and walked away, I’d worry. But everyone here is cheerful and upbeat.

So this is what it’s like to hang out with lawyers. They don’t seem so evil. They just seem like a bunch of guys who have high-pressure jobs, who could gain or lose large sums of money for their clients based on how they perform every day.

Later, back at Holmes’s office, with a glorious view of the Ben Franklin Bridge, he tells me why he has been at Dilworth for 14 years and plans never to leave.

“They trust you here,” he says. “My first year, I was working on cases, doing things much more substantial than my peers. I’d talk to guys I was in law school with, and they’d be doing doc review all day.

“One of the things I noticed right away is how accessible everyone is. There’s a level of respect. Partners, associates, it doesn’t matter. The other day I walked over to an event with the chairman, and we just chatted like regular people.”

He looks around his cluttered office. “You know,” he says, “I spend more time in this room than I do in bed. And I love it.”

Iain Levison last wrote for Philadelphia about Al Taubenberger. E-mail: mail@phillymag.com