A health care law firm’s biggest advantage in New Jersey can also be its biggest limit.
That’s the lesson Anjana Patel and her colleagues at Baker Donelson have learned since launching the firm’s first two New Jersey offices in April 2025 — and it’s shaping how they’re building out their newest one.
Baker Donelson’s MetroPark office has moved into a permanent home, an 11,200-square-foot buildout at 111 Wood Avenue South in Iselin. The office now has nearly 20 team members, including 11 attorneys, many of them among the firm’s leading health law practitioners, handling everything from mergers and acquisitions to hospital-physician alignments and regulatory work.
It’s the kind of health law bench that built the group’s reputation in the first place. Patel, Gary Herschman and their colleagues spent years together at Sills Cummis & Gross before moving to Epstein Becker, developing one of New Jersey’s top health care practices before jumping to the Memphis-based Baker Donelson and its 700-plus attorneys last year.
But as Patel explained it, health law expertise alone won’t be enough to grow the firm’s presence in New Jersey.
The need to add more practice groups is the key to future growth of a national firm that is looking to expand its reach not only in New Jersey, but the Mid-Atlantic, including New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland.
“You’re more attractive as a lateral target if you’re well-rounded,” Patel said. “We can probably hire more health care people easily because the name isn’t recognized as much outside health law. But if you’re trying to bring in an employment person or a real estate person, it’d be nice to already have that as part of the mix.”
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The MetroPark office has been almost entirely health care-focused since it opened.
“We’re all healthcare here,” Patel said.
The firm’s other New Jersey office, in Princeton, is much of the same. It has built a niche in payor litigation, representing hospitals, health systems and physicians in disputes with insurers like Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield over reimbursement and audits.
Patel, who is the office managing partner of both locations, said that specialization is valuable — but it’s also part of the problem.
Baker Donelson has more than 700 attorneys across more than 20 offices in 13 states, from Florida to Texas to Maryland.
Its name recognition is strong in health law circles and much weaker outside them.
“In health law, everybody knows the name — that’s kind of a no-brainer,” she said. “In other areas of law, it’s not that well known. Once you explain the history — that this is Howard Baker’s firm — people say, ‘Oh, we know that.’”
So, the pitch to lateral hires now leans on scale, not specialty, Patel said.
“You can find pretty much anybody here doing any type of law,” she said. “It’s a great way to cross-market, cross-sell, and expand your book of business.”
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The new MetroPark space is designed to help make that case in person. It includes a wellness and lactation room and conference rooms named for New Jersey icons Thomas Edison, Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen.
“On a good day, you can see Manhattan,” Patel said.
The office sits a short walk from the Metro Park train station on the Northeast Corridor — a detail Patel said matters as much for recruiting as convenience. Attorneys living in Manhattan already commute to the office, she said, and the location makes the firm’s reach into New York and Philadelphia markets more realistic.
Growth is coming from more than the physical space. The firm’s Princeton office moved into its own permanent home, an 11,000-plus-square-foot buildout at 281 Witherspoon Street, in November 2025. Both offices are actively recruiting laterals in labor and employment, tax and litigation, on top of health care.
Patel is also working to build the Baker Donelson name locally — the firm recently joined the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Patel said she’s looking to connect with Middlesex County’s business community next.
It’s a slower build than the firm’s health law reputation, but Patel isn’t in a hurry.
“We’re all healthcare here,” she said.
For now, that’s still true. Building out everything else is the plan.
For information about Baker Donelson, go to bakerdonelson.com.
