Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP has added three partners and an associate to its growing downtown Los Angeles office. To accomodate this expanding office, the firm recently opened an additional floor at 333 South Hope Street. The four new hires were needed to handle real estate finance deals and class action litigation. Real estate finance specialist David Fong joins Thelen from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and will be the contact person for the firm’s real estate finance practice in Southern California. Class action expert and appellate law specialist Steven Katz joins the Labor and Employment Department from Jones Day. Real Estate partner Jarrett Fugh will split his time between the firm’s Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, and Real Estate associate Martha Bringas will also move to the downtown Los Angeles office from Century City to assist on real estate finance deals. Since Thelen’s December merger, the firm has increased the number of deals it is doing on the West Coast; the firm has already handled more than $1 billion in West Coast deals for major investment banking clients.
Source: www.prnewswire.com
Monthly Archives: March 2007
Loeb & Loeb Builds IP Group
Loeb & Loeb has hired Thomas Guida for its Intellectual Property and Entertainment group. Coming from Baker & Hostetler, Guida joins the New York office as a partner. His practice focuses on the development, licensing, financing and protection of intellectual property assets, with a particular emphasis on digital and interactive media, branded entertainment, entertainment technology and complex licensing transactions. Guida is the fourth lateral partner hire in the past two months for Loeb & Loeb’s IP group; the firm has plans to add two more soon. Loeb & Loeb is a national firm with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Nashville.
Source: www.lawfuel.com
Seeger Weiss Opens in Philly
Plaintiffs firm Seeger Weiss has opened a Philadelphia office with three class action attorneys from Philadelphia plaintiffs firm Sheller P.C. Jonathan Shub will be resident partner of the Philadelphia office along with two associates, TerriAnne Benedetto and Scott Alan George. Shub’s decision to move was due to a change in Sheller’s class action focus; his work focuses primarily on consumer class actions, but he also has a subspecialty in computer-defect cases. Seeger Weiss has offices in New York City, Newark, NJ, and Tulsa, OK; though the firm was not looking to open in Philly, the decision was easy when the opportunity arose. Already some of the firm’s lawyers spend time there, and it is one of few U.S. cities prominent in class action work.
Source: www.law.com
Clifford Chance Closes California Operations
With the departure of the global IP head and last remaining Palo Alto partner, Daniel Harris, Clifford Chance’s California operations are officially closed. Though the original plan was for Harris to move his IP practice to the Washington office after the closure of the Palo Alto office, he decided to stay in CA, leaving the firm altogether. In 2002, Clifford Chance had four offices on the West Coast; by 2002, however, Harris was the only attorney left. The firm has not announced a successor for Harris yet.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
Epstein Becker Recruits Seven for Real Estate Practice
Epstein, Becker & Green has recruited seven real estate lawyers from the New York office of Roseland, N.J.’s Lowenstein Sandler. Adrian Zuckerman, the former head of Lowenstein Sandler’s New York real estate practice and a former deputy general counsel of real estate management company Helmsley Spear Inc., heads the group. He also will become co-head of Epstein Becker’s national real estate practice. Ralph Berman and Linda Bielik are also joining Epstein Becker as partners while Brian L. Ullman, Andrew R. Tulloch and Steven M. Ziolkowski will become counsels. One associate is also joining the firm. Epstein Becker has 380 attorneys in 11 offices throughout the country.
Source: www.law.com
IP Firms Stay Competitive with Pay
January’s pay raises increased first year associate pay essentially across the board for large firms. Despite the pay increases, smaller intellectual property specialty firms are still managing to compete in the salary race. For example, New York’s 70-lawyer IP firm Frommer Lawrence & Haug has been paying its first-year associates $150,000 since July, when most large national general practice firms were still paying their first years $135,000. Chicago’s McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff also pays above the market rate for associates, raising its first year annual salary to $145,000 in early 2006, and raising it again this January to $150,000. The two largest IP firms, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner and Fish & Richardson have actually not only matched New York rates, but they have also made those rates effective nationwide. IP firms have always been ahead of the curve in terms of compensation because of their strong and steady income and low overhead pay.
Source: www.law.com
NY Firms Prepare for Boom in Restructuring Work
In preparation for an economic downturn NY firms are looking to expand their restructuring practices. Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Cravath Swaine & Moore and Dewey Ballantine are just a few of the firms that will most likely refigure their practices to keep up with an increase in that type of work. Some firms will be encouraging corporate lawyers to move into restructuring work, while others will be looking outside to recruit. Cadwalader has actually already hired a team of four bankruptcy lawyers from Weil Gotshal & Manges earlier this month.
Source: www.legalweek.com
Seattle Firm’s San Francisco Office Opens with New Hires
Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro has opened an office in San Francisco to better serve their clients, local tech companies. The firm is known for its plaintiffs work managing multistate national class actions in securities, antitrust and consumer fraud cases. Specifically in the Bay area, Hagens Berman is involved in the DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and SRAM antitrust cases. To head the new office, the 38-lawyer firm recruited former Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins partner Reed Kathrein; he will also be in charge of the LA branch. Joining Kathrein in San Francisco are two associates and an of counsel from the Lerach firm.
Source: www.law.com
Weil’s Austin Founder Leaves for Houston Boutique
Greg Coleman of Weil Gotshal & Manges has left for Houston firm Yetter & Warden. Coleman founded Weil’s Austin office in 2003 and was the head of its Supreme Court and appellate litigation group. At Yetter, Weil will start that litigation boutique’s first appellate team. After Coleman’s departure, Weil is left with twelve lawyers in Austin, including only one partner.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
New Hires at Pittsburgh Firm
Cohen & Grigsby has hired two new attorneys for its Pittsburgh headquarters. Donald M. Lund joins the firm as a director in the Litigation Group. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation and product defect claims. Curt Vazquez joins the firm as a director in the Litigation Group. An expert in commercial litigation matters, Vazquez specializes in insurance coverage and counselling, consumer class action defense, and accounting malpractice. Both men were formerly with Jones Day in Pittsburgh. Cohen & Grigsby also has offices in Naples, Florida and Bonita Springs, Florida.
Source: www.home.businesswire.com
