Steele Law grows since founding

OSWEGO — When Kimberly Steele lost her job in a bank merger in 2006, she decided to strike out on her own.

Steele founded The Steele Law Firm, P.C. five years ago. At the time, she was its sole attorney. The firm now employs seven lawyers, along with support staff members, says Steele, managing attorney.

Steele lost her job with Oswego County National Bank after it was acquired by Syracuse–based Alliance Financial Corp.

“I just wanted to try it on my own and see if I could do it the way I think business can be done,” she says.

That means allowing her employees to drive the business, Steele says. She runs a profit-sharing program and says future growth plans will be decided collectively.

“If that’s what the group so desires, then it will be pursued,” she says of future expansion.

Steele Law specializes in construction law, bonding, commercial litigation, and creditor representation.

The firm has been able to grow despite the economic downturn, which has hit the construction industry especially hard. There’s usually a need in the industry for legal representation regardless of the economic climate, Steele says.

Construction law and work on bonding especially are specialized fields, Steele adds. Not every attorney has experience or does work in those arenas.

Steele Law has clients all over the country. The firm has been able to reach other geographies because many of its contractor clients work outside upstate New York.

That has helped the firm pick up work in new markets, Steele says. Contractors, she notes, can’t rely on work in their own backyards alone given the downturn in construction spending.

Many are looking to joint ventures with other construction firms and employing other alternative methods to get projects off the ground, Steele says. Those arrangements often require legal work, she adds.

And projects around the country that launched before the recession hit have been scaled back, Steele says.

“There’s always some need for legal counsel even if owners need to tailor down their initial visions,” she says.

Steele says she got her start in construction unexpectedly. She walked into a law firm in Rochester on a whim after a bad job interview with another firm. She wound up meeting a partner and the firm, which specialized in construction law, hired her on the spot.

Steele Law’s clients include school districts, developers, commercial-project owners, architects, engineers, and banks, along with contractors.

The attorneys she’s hired over the past few years have been people she’s known in the industry. One is a lawyer from Manhattan she met at an industry event in Buffalo who is also trained as an architect.

Another was an opposing counsel before the two teamed on cases in later years, Steele says.