OC Law Firm Callahan & Blaine Leave Santa Ana for Irvine

An Orange County-based law office is relocating its headquarters from Santa Ana to Irvine.

Trial and litigation firm Callahan & Blaine is moving to the top two floors of Newport Gateway, a 12-acre office campus at 19800 and 19900 MacArthur Boulevard in Irvine, L.A. Business First reported.

The company will abandon its anchor tenancy at 3 Hutton Centre Drive for its new 45,000-square-foot home at Newport Gateway, developed by prolific Newport Beach-based developer Irvine Company,starting Jan. 1.

One of the Newport Gateway complex’s towers will bear Callahan & Blaine signage when the firm begins moving its 32 attorneys into the new digs in the first quarter. Callahan & Blaine plans to host an open house on March 20 to commemorate the move.

“After more than a quarter century at Hutton Centre, this move represents both our firm’s evolution and our commitment to Orange County,” Edward Susolik, president and CEO of Callahan & Blaine, said in a statement, per L.A. Business First. “We have become Orange County’s top litigation firm, and we felt it was important for our offices to reflect that achievement while providing our team and clients with a world-class environment.”

Further north in Los Angeles, law firms have become some of the biggest players in new office leases as entertainment and technology firms’ foothold in the area shrinks. Tech and entertainment companies signed major office leases in L.A. between 2021 and 2023, but since then, so-called “traditional” office users like law firms and financial companies have started gobbling up a larger share, John Eichler, a principal at Avison Young, told L.A. Business First.

Overall office vacancy in Orange County rose to 19 percent in the third quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s Q3 office report. Average asking rents, meanwhile, fell to $2.87 per square foot.

— Chris Malone Méndez