The transition will be marked not only by a change of personalities at the top, but also by a change in the job.
Stewart, 55, will be Ballard's first full-time chairman, in keeping with an ongoing trend among larger Philadelphia firms to have lawyers who no longer practice much law serve as chief executive.
The thinking is that law firms have become too large and complex to be effectively managed by part-time executives.
In Stewart's case, the decision to make him a full-time chairman resulted from discussions with Ballard Spahr partners around the country, who spoke of the need for a chief executive who regularly visited the firm's scattered offices and touched base with important clients.
The 475-lawyer firm has 13 offices in the United States, but none abroad.
"The partners seemed to think that the firm was ready for a full-time chairman," said Stewart, who lives in Swarthmore with his wife and children. "I will do more traveling, and I will spend more time away from Philadelphia."
In contrast to the stereotypical image of a litigator as brash and confrontational, Stewart projects a quiet and disarmingly accessible personality. Paradoxically, that has served him well in the confrontational world of litigation, where highly charged emotions can obscure good judgment, says Ballard partner John Langel.
"They are slow to anger, and that is a wonderful trait," Langel, chairman of the labor and employment group at Ballard, said of litigators such as Stewart.
Besides his litigation practice, Stewart has served as the firm's partner for strategic planning, so he has long focused on trying to match the firm's practice areas and geographic footprint with the roiling legal marketplace.
He and Makadon worked together five years ago on the firm's expansion into Phoenix. It took some deft maneuvering to pull it off.
