Portland, Ore.-based Bateman Seidel Miner Blomgren Chellis & Gram's decision to open a Pittsburgh office is something of a rarity: West Coast law firms don't often, if ever, come to the Steel City to set up shop.

But according to Phillip M. Bender, an environmental litigator who left Pittsburgh's K&L Gates to join Bateman Seidel and open its new Pittsburgh location on Nov. 1, the move was not really about geography.

Instead, he said, the idea is to help Bateman Seidel create a "virtual law firm" with attorneys who can handle environmental matters anywhere in the country, at any time.

The new Pittsburgh location is the firm's only office outside of its Portland base.

"It's less about building some kind of brick and mortar station -- though we will have an office [in Pittsburgh] -- and more about building a team that can respond to clients anywhere," Mr. Bender said. He currently has clients as close as Ohio and West Virginia, and as far away as California and Oregon.

Bateman Seidel shareholder J. W. Ring agreed, saying that while it will be convenient to have an office in the Eastern time zone since it has clients in Pennsylvania, Florida and Mississippi, electronic filing has largely made physical location immaterial.

"In complex environmental litigation, your clients don't really come to your office. You go to them," he said.

"Where you hang your shingle is pretty much irrelevant to them anymore."

Mr. Bender said he was originally approached by Mr. Ring about joining the 15-attorney firm, which, in addition to litigation and environmental law, focuses on real estate, finance, affordable housing, business and tax law. Mr. Bender said Mr. Ring was a longtime friend of his with whom he worked at Seattle-based Preston Gates & Ellis before it merged with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, to form K&L Gates in 2007.

Mr. Bender said he decided to make the move partly because it gives him more freedom to "own" and "shape" his practice.

"It's a very exciting opportunity to build something from the ground level up," he said, adding that he anticipated more lawyers would join the Pittsburgh office over the next few years, but that growth would be dependent on clients' needs.

According to Mr. Ring, Bateman Seidel is structured somewhat uniquely in that profits are shared by everyone at the firm. The firm is able to do this because it keeps its overhead low by running a "lean, mean, electronic operation" out of Portland, where rent is much lower than, say, Downtown Los Angeles. Keeping its costs down has enabled the firm to offer large-firm quality at smaller-market rates, Mr. Ring said.

While Bateman Seidel has a lower cost structure than the nearly 2,000-lawyer K&L Gates, Mr. Bender said rates were not a factor in his decision to join Bateman Seidel. Still, he couldn't deny rates were a huge concern for his clients and particularly for the municipal clients he represents on the East Coast.

Another reason Mr. Bender joined the firm is that he is now in talks to become general counsel of Riverlife Pittsburgh, a nonprofit organization that works to restore and develop the city's riverfronts. The position will require a time commitment he wouldn't have been able to make had he stayed at K&L Gates.

K&L Gates spokesman Mike Rick said the firm had no comment on Mr. Bender's departure.