Howrey Introduces Merit-Based Compensation SystemHowrey has announced that starting next year they will be changing from a lockstep compensation system to a merit-based system for its associates. In making the change, the firm aims to compensate associates for what they are worth, no matter how what their seniority level. Firm leaders also see it as fairer to their clients, who will no longer be forced to pay an associate more just because he or she has one more year under the belt. First years will still start at the market rate of $160,000, but all other associates advance according to personal evaluations. Their performance and experience could, for instance, shorten or lengthen the partnership track.
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Greenberg Traurig Recruits Civil Litigator in Santa MonicaGreenberg Traurig welcomed civil litigator Richard Welsh to its Santa Monica office. Welsh joins as a shareholder in the litigation practice. Formerly, Welsh was a partner with Kirkland & Ellis in downtown L.A. His specialties include real estate, commercial law, and class action suits. He has represented companies such as Home Depot and DirecTV, and also has experience in appellate representation and alternative dispute forums.
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Lewis & Roca Merges with Nevada FirmPhoenix-based Lewis & Roca is merging with Nevada firm Beckley Singleton. The firm will continue keep the name Lewis & Roca, and will be one of the largest in Nevada, with 57 attorneys practicing in the state and 200 attorneys firm wide. Fifteen shareholders of Beckley Singleton will join Lewis and Roca as partners, two attorneys will join as of counsel, and the remaining 17 attorneys will be associates. Lewis & Roca has offices in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.
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Holland & Knight Criminal Defense Team Joins Nixon PeabodySix government investigations and white-collar criminal defense lawyers from Holland & Knight have joined Nixon Peabody in its Boston office. Mark D. Seltzer and Brian French join Nixon as partners. Four associates, Lisa Lent, Averi Price, Sean Riley and Shannon Schultz, also made the move.
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Patent Attorneys Are Hot PropertyPatent attorneys are in strong demand across the country. With patent applications having more than tripled over the past two decades (reaching over 440,000 last year), and patent lawyers making up only about 3 percent of the nation's 1.1 million active attorneys, the competition between firms to recruit them is fierce. The field is especially demanding because it requires scientific or technical expertise along with a law degree, making the patent lawyers out there hot commodities. First-year associates at large firms can expect a 10 percent to 15 percent premium over base pay of about $160,000. An IP partner at a top firm typically is hired at $700,000 or $800,000, even $1 million a year, even with a small book of business.
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Thelen Reid Raises Salaries, Offers Two-Tier ScaleThelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner is the last major California firm to announce a pay raise as a part of the recent wave of increases. Rather than establishing a starting salary of $160,000 across the board, Thelen Reid created a two-tier pay structure that pays associates that work 2,000 hours a year $160,000, and pays those that work less $145,000. The two-tier scale will be effective on July 1 in California, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey. This structure allows more flexibility for those associates who balance life/work issues, putting less pressure on them to perform up to a $160,000 standard. The associates can move between the two tiers without falling off the partner track - twice a year they can move into the 2,000-hour tier, and they can move back into the less-than-2,000-hour option once. Fenwick & West has a similar system, letting associates choose between a 1,800 or 1,950-hour pay scale.
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Sedgwick Detert Recruits Real Estate TeamSedgwick Detert Moran & Arnold picked up six real estate lawyers from the now dissolved Woo & Associates. The lawyers, who specialize in representing landlords, will join Sedgwick's San Francisco office. Sedgwick's real estate practice already included litigation and transactional services for a wide range of commercial real estate owners, developers, managers, lessees and professionals.
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Kirkland Ellis Faces Departures in L.A.Kirkland & Ellis's L.A. office has faced a number of departures over the past six months, bringing the 115-lawyer office down to about 90. About half of those attorneys who left were partners, some of whom are moving on to a new stage in their career. Now the number of partners and associates are about equal, creating a slight sense of imbalance. The L.A. office is strong in civil litigation, IP, bankruptcy, and corporate law, and firm sources report confidence in the office's future growth.
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East Coast Firms New L.A. Offices ThriveSeveral firms that entered the L.A. market last year are celebrating a successful first year. Despite the competitive lateral market, these firms have managed to significantly increase their headcounts. Goodwin Procter, had a particularly good year in California, opening two offices in L.A. and others in San Diego, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. Steptoe & Johnson has grown their Century City office to 22 lawyers, finding success in recruiting in West L.A. Whereas Steptoe has grown using a lateral-by-lateral approach, Venable has built its L.A. office by combining two local 10-lawyer boutiques.
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Bingham McCutchen Merges with Tokyo FirmBingham McCutchen has merged with Tokyo insolvency firm, New Tokyo International Law Office. The merger will put the number of Japanese lawyers in the office to 50. In January of this year, Bingham merged with another Tokyo firm, Sakai & Mimura.
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MoFo Losses Antitrust Lawyer to Holme Roberts & OwenJesse Markham Jr. is leaving Morrison Foerster to join Holme Roberts & Owen in San Francisco as the antitrust team co-chair. At MoFo, Markham was the co-chair of the antitrust group for three years. His reasons for the move included lower billing rates and an opportunity to grow HRO's practice. With the new addition, Denver-based HFO will have 19 lawyers in its San Fran office. Markham aims to establish one of the "go-to" antitrust practices in the country, but some say that will be difficult without a larger group of lawyers and in a firm that isn't known for its antitrust work.
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Wilson Sonsini Prepares to Close Salt Lake City ShopWilson Sonsini will be closing its Salt Lake City office within the next two months. The 13-lawyer office opened in 2001. The Silicon Valley firm decided to close the office in order to bring partner Robert O'Connor back to the San Francisco office where he will help organize and manage the clean-tech practice. Corporate partner Mark Bonham will stay in Salt Lake, joining local firm Ray Quinney & Nebeker, along with four associates.
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Ogletree Deakins Merges with Lewis FisherOgletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart has merged with Lewis Fisher Henderson & Claxton opening two new offices in Memphis, TN, and Jackson, MS. The merger will add 19 lawyers to Ogletree's 365. Though Memphis had not been a city that Ogletree had been considering, it will allow the firm to service Western Tennessee, Arkansas, and parts of Mississippi. Moreover, only one other labor & employment boutique, Ford & Harrison, has an office in Memphis. Ogletree has opened six new offices since the beginning of 2005, and now has 30 nationwide.
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NJ Firm Lowenstein Sandler Raises Starting Salary to $140,000Lowenstein Sandler is the first New Jersey firm to raise first-year salaries to $140,000. The 250-lawyer firm also reported that its New York associates' pay might be even higher. The second highest-paying NJ firm is Flaster Greenberg, with a starting salary of $130,000. Lowenstein's raise may put pressure on other NJ firms that have remained at the $125,000 level like Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross, Gibbons and McCarter & English. Raymond Thek, the chair of the recruiting committee at Lowenstein, expressed that the raise was the firm's way of remaining the market leader and being able to recruit the best new associates possible.
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Chadbourne Enters into Merger Talks with UK's Watson, Farley & WilliamsChadbourne & Parke has begun intial merger discussions with London-based firm Watson, Farley & Williams. The combined firm would have over 600 lawyers and combined revenues of more than $350 milion. Chadbourne has been looking to merge to increase its size and become more competitive with larger firms. Managing partner, Charlie O'Neil, has been trying to increase Chadbourne's profitability over the past couple years after a bad year in 2005. He has succeeded in increasing the firm's revenues, but the firm has also lost several key partners along the way.
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Goodwin Procter Opens in Palo AltoGoodwin Procter has opened a Palo Alto office, its fifth office in California to open over the past 14 months. The Boston-based firm recruited six Bay Area attorneys from Townsend & Townsend & Crew LLP, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC and Latham & Watkins LLP for the new office. The firm has offices in L.A., San Francisco, and San Diego, and has over 750 attorneys nationwide.
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San Diego Has More Law Firms Than ClientsThe San Diego legal market has become saturated with lawyers and firms over the past 10-15 years, making the competition fierce for the limited number of clients. Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps and what was then Gray Cary Ames & Frye were the first two firms in the city, but in the 1980s some L.A. firms started setting up shop in the city. Tech-focused San Francisco firms arrived in the early 90s, taking advantage of the booming life sciences industry. Most recently, Boston firms such as Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo and Goodwin Procter are staking their claim in the southern CA market. Some people say that these new arrivals will not have what it takes to compete against the well-established firms, though others argue that with some agressive lateral recruiting, these firms will be able to grow their San Diego offices into a real player in the market.
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Cost of Living Differences Forgotten with Nationwide Pay RaisesConsidering the difference in cost of living between California and New York, some have begun to wonder whether the West coast (and elsewhere) matching of the NY market rate is fair for NY associates. Starting in May many big CA firms raised first-year salaries from $145,000 to $160,000; some firms in Boston and Chicago have made the same move. Those firms justify the raises by emphasizing their national status - they want all of their associates to receive the same pay no matter where they are in the country. However, when it comes down to it, there are vast differences in cost of living across the U.S. The $160,000 NY salary is actually equal to $205,631 in L.A., and $278,573 in Chicago.
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Dickstein Shapiro Adds 4 Thelen Reid Attorneys in L.A.D.C. based Dickstein Shapiro has added four attorneys from Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner's L.A. office, which has seen more than a dozen departures since its fall merger. Partners James Turken and Amy Rubinfeld, along with two associates from Thelen's commercial litigation group have joined the 20-lawyer office in L.A. Thelen's office now has about 50 attorneys, down from 65 at the time of its merger with Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner.
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Pay Hikes in SacramentoSeveral firms in Sacramento, CA have jumped onto the pay raise bandwagon. Seyfarth Shaw increased first-year pay from $121,000 to $135,000, while Weintraub Genshlea Chediak bumped up pay to $100,000 and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP raised starting salaries to $145,000. Morrison & Foerster pays new lawyers $160,000, which is said to be the best pay in town.
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Boston First Years Get Pay RaiseSeveral firms have raised first-year salaries to $160,000 in their Boston offices, and in some cases firmwide. Bingham McCutchen, DLA Piper, McDermott Will & Emery and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, along with Boston-based Foley Hoag are the firms who have recently raised pay to the NY market scale. Ropes & Gray, Goodwin Procter, and Choate Hall & Stewart have also already raised Boston salaries.
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King & Spalding IP Patners Join Heller; K&S Hires New PartnerThree IP partners from King & Spalding have departed for Heller Ehrman's NYC office; Kevin Culligan, W. Edward Bailey and John Hanish specialize in patent litigation. Before joining King & Spalding, the partners were with NY IP boutique Fish & Neave prior to its merger with Ropes & Gray. King & Spalding has already begun to fill their spots, hiring Ethan Horwitz, the former IP chairman of Goodwin Procter.
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Trowers & Hamilins Opens Saudi Office with New PartnershipUK firm Trowers & Hamlins has established a new partnership in Saudi Arabia with Feras Al Shawaf. Trowers associate Rami Ami-Ghosh will move to the Riyadh office joining Al Shawaf and his four associates; more Trowers lawyers will join later in the summer. Sources from Trowers are confident with the new alliance - the firms' corporate and project work complement each other well.
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Akin Bankruptcy Duo Joins Reed SmithReed Smith Richards Butler snagged Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld's London restructuring team last week. Cross-border restructuring partner Jeff Drew and associate Nuala Barratt were recruited by Reed Smith in anticipation of an increase in restructuring work. With at least 20 restructuring attorneys in New York, Akin Gump has no plans to replace the two lost in London.
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Stoel Rives Opens in Minneapolis with 13 Lateral HiresPortland firm Stoel Rives has opened a Minneapolis office with the hiring of 13 lawyers from Minneapolis-based Lindquist & Vennum. The ten partners and three associates have practices in agribusiness, renewable energy, and food. Stoel Rives has over 350 attorneys in 10 U.S. offices.
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Fulbright Recruits White Collar Litigation TeamThree white collar defense attorneys from Akerman Senterfitt joined Fulbright & Jaworski's international litigation and dispute resolution practice this week. Richard C. Smith, Alexandre H. Rene and Guy D. Singer join Fulbright's Washington, D.C. office; all three are former U.S. Department of Justice attorneys. Smith joins as a partner, and was known in the Justice Department for his quick investigations and prosecutions of corporate fraud cases. Rene also will be a partner at Fulbright - he has prosecuted cases involving bribery, bank fraud, money laundering, securities fraud, obstruction of justice, perjury, mail and wire fraud. Singer joins as senior counsel. Fulbright's litigation and dispute resolution practice has been a part of the firm since its founding in 1919. The firm today has close to 1,000 lawyers practicing in 16 locations worldwide.
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Littler Mendelson Opens Orlando ShopLittler Mendelson has opened an office in Orlando with six employment lawyers from Fisher & Phillips. With locations in Charlotte, NC; Columbia, SC; Atlanta, Mobile, AL and Miami, the San Francisco firm's new office pushes it farther into the Southeast. Littler Mendelson is known as the nation's largest labor and employment firm, and has over 600 attorneys across the country.
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Saul Ewing Loses Two PartnersSaul Ewing has lost two partners to other firms recently. Suzanne Mayes left the firm after nearly 16 years to co-lead Cozen O'Connor's public and project finance group. Domenic Pacitti left to rejoin his old firm, Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg & Ellers, as a partner in the bankruptcy practice. Mayes was attracted to Cozen because of the firm's committment to growing the public finance practice and because of the opportunity for management there. Her practice is primarily based in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and she mainly works with state and county agencies. Pacitti was a partner at Klehr Harrison from 1998 to 2001, when he was recruited by Saul Ewing. He kept in touch with his former collegues, and in mid-May decided to rejoin his old firm. Pacitti works out of both the Wilmington, DE and Philadelphia offices, and focuses his representation on the debtor side of restructuring deals.
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K&L Gates Combines D.C. OfficesKirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis has combined its two D.C. offices into one at 1601 K St. NW, the former home of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham. The 190,000 square foot office will house more than 200 lawyers and government affairs professionals. In the nation's capital, the firm is known for its work in financial services, including an investment management practice and a mortgage banking and consumer credit group. The merger between Kirkpatrick & Lockhart and Preston Gates & Ellis created one of the largest public policy and lobbying practices in the U.S.
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Morgan Lewis Raises CA Associate PayMorgan Lewis & Bockius is the latest to raise associate salaries to the $160,000 scale in California. Bingham McCutchen and Reed Smith are still holding out, and are likely to be the only other firms that might make the increase. Those two firms have profits high enough that could handle the raise, whereas lower profit firms like Littler Mendelson and Sedgwick probably will not match the rate. Thelen Reid and Townsend are two firms that could go either way with the raise.
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Stroock Loses Bankruptcy Partner to O'MelvenyShannon Lowry Nagle has joined O'Melveny & Myers as a bankruptcy partner. She is the fifth partner to join O'Melveny from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, after a four-partner group joined at the beginning of May. Nagle's practice focuses on representing creditors in bankruptcy proceedings; she has also worked on Chapter 11 cases in automotive, retail, airline and telecommunications industries.
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