Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love LLP will expand its regional footprint in early 2012 with two new offices in southwestern Pennsylvania and the northern panhandle region of West Virginia.  The law firm’s Managing Partner, Thomas A. Heywood, announced the expansion today, noting that both locations will allow Bowles Rice to better serve its clients in the oil and gas industry. 

“We are very excited to announce these two new offices,” Heywood said.  “We have been planning the move to southwestern Pennsylvania for more than a year, and the opportunity to join many of our existing clients in that area was made to order.”  In fact, according to Heywood, the firm’s new office, located in the Southpointe Office Park near Canonsburg, is currently under construction and being developed to the firm’s specifications.  He expects the space to be ready for occupancy in the Spring of 2012.

The firm’s second new office, in Moundsville, West Virginia, will be a smaller space and provide many of the firm’s attorneys who serve clients in Marshall County and surrounding areas with a “home base,” according to Heywood.  “This location will allow us to better serve our clients and the energy industry as a whole in this revitalized region.”

Attorneys and staff in the new offices will initially serve clients working in exploration of the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale formations, Heywood said, but the firm intends to provide a full range of legal services at both locations.  “We believe that our firm’s depth and experience will be of great advantage to businesses and individuals in these areas.” 

Bowles Rice was recognized as “Top Tier” in more than 40 different areas of the law in the 2011 edition of Best Law Firms, published by US News & World Reports.  The firm currently has 130 lawyers in offices located in Charleston, Martinsburg, Morgantown and Parkersburg, West Virginia; Lexington, Kentucky; and Winchester, Virginia.  The new offices in Canonsburg and Moundsville will be the firm’s seventh and eighth locations.