Sutin, Thayer & Browne

Overview 

Sutin, Thayer & Browne is the largest majority women-owned law firm in New Mexico and one of the largest in the nation. Truly "New Mexico's Business Lawyers®," the firm serves its clients with some 30 attorneys and roughly 25 staff members in offices in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is one of the state’s largest and most well-established law firms. Engaged in a broad general civil and commercial practice, Sutin’s lawyers are committed to providing high-quality, responsive, results-oriented legal services to their clients. The firm's primary focus is business transactions and litigation, with special expertise in banking and finance, energy, M&A, employment and labor, economic development and public finance, divorce and family law, state and local tax law, IP, and education. Sutin, Thayer & Browne represents the State, its elected officials, individuals, financial institutions, retailers, wholesalers, nationwide businesses, universities, nonprofit organizations, profit-sharing plans, hospitals, municipalities, and other government and corporate entities. Firm lawyers represent clients in administrative proceedings as well as trials and appeals in federal, state, and tribal courts.

Commitment to Diversity 

As the largest majority women-owned law firm in New Mexico, diversity is in Sutin’s DNA. The firm recruits for diversity in racial and cultural heritage, for a variety of backgrounds and interests, ages, and genders. The result is that nearly every legal team, across both the commercial and litigation groups, demonstrates diversity. Each matter is staffed for the best mix of expertise and cost control, ensuring that no one is excluded from participating in client work. As the firm’s numbers of female shareholders have risen over the course of the last four years, so has its percentage of diversity in legal teams. Currently, Sutin staffs client matters at roughly 90% diversity.

The firm’s leadership is also staffed in a fully diverse manner. The National Association of Women Lawyers calculate that women account for only 21% (2021 numbers) of equity partners in the country; Sutin is at 58%. That number is only 3% for women of color nationwide; 29% of Sutin’s female equity partners are women of color. They both currently serve on the Board of Directors and are officers in the firm. One of the firm’s two practice group leaders is female.

Legal Leadership 

The firm has a long and distinguished record of providing legal leadership through public service. Sutin, Thayer & Browne was founded in 1946 by the late Irwin S. Moise, who later became Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court and Lewis R. Sutin. Judge Sutin later served as a judge of the New Mexico Court of Appeals, and then returned to the firm before his retirement from practice. Franklin Jones, a past New Mexico Commissioner of Revenue, also practiced with the firm after his tenure in public service, during which time he led the effort to comprehensively revise the New Mexico tax law in the 1960s. In the following decades, other firm lawyers, led by Suzanne Bruckner, have penned additional legislation and various updates to the state’s tax code. Most recently, Jonathan B. Sutin, formerly a shareholder, was named to the New Mexico Court of Appeals in 1999, and another former shareholder, Shannon Bacon, was named to the New Mexico 2nd Judicial District Court in 2010 and to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2019.

Fully 95% of the firm’s peer-reviewed lawyers have earned individual AV Preeminent ratings through the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, that directory’s highest rating. Its lawyers have been listed in The Bond Buyer’s Municipal Marketplace (formerly The Bond Buyer’s Directory of Municipal Bond Dealers of the United States) since 1982 and are nationally recognized as independent bond counsel. Sutin’s attorneys are members of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, the National Association of Bond Lawyers, the Defense Research Institute, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the American Board of Trial Advocates, the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and many other professional organizations.