Rodney Diggs in October slid into the roles of board president and managing partner at the downtown-based law firm Ivie McNeill Wyatt Purcell & Diggs.
In these roles, Diggs indicated he will continue to do what he has been doing since making the board of directors as a partner in 2016 and making name partner in 2019: building up the 82-year-old operation.
“A lot of people in the Los Angeles area know about the firm, but I want to make it known throughout California and throughout the U.S.,” Diggs said. “That’s my plan,
to build our brand domestically and
internationally.”
It’s a goal Diggs is well experienced with. One of his signature contributions to the firm – among the oldest and largest Black-owned law firms in California – was kickstarting a sports-oriented practice in 2023 to take advantage of changing rules on name, image and likeness deals and other transactions. Diggs helped bring in Jerome Stanley, a former sports agent, in 2023 to lead that sports practice.
It is through shoring up these practices that Diggs aims to add to the firm’s notoriety.
“The biggest thing is to expand, not necessarily in terms of new offices or things of that nature, but in terms of practice areas,” he said.
The firm has four satellite offices, including one in Leimert Park, and about 30 attorneys.
An employment lawyer by training, Diggs highlighted that his firm is composed of dedicated trial attorneys.
That said, he was interested in also shoring up Ivie McNeill Wyatt’s transactional capabilities – with which he sees synergy in the sports practice. Diggs’ clients in this intersection of practices include Evelyn Lozada of “Basketball Wives” fame.
Moving forward, Diggs said he seeks to create a continuous cycle of veteran lawyers bringing their talents to the firm to complement younger hires, who ideally start off as summer associates or clerks. In doing so, he said he wants to “make this a place where people want to be.”
“What we want to do in terms of growth is bring in more laterals, people who have a book of business that can come over,” he said. “With established attorneys, we can bring in those younger ones to train and keep that cycle going.”