Hogan & Hartson has announced its 2008 financial figures. The firm increased their revenue by 4.8 percent, making a total of $922.5 million, as compared to 2007’s $800 million. Profit per equity (PEP) actually fell 2 percent. Hogan & Hartson’s 2007 PEP was $1.19 million, which fell to $1.16 million in 2008.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
Kutak Rock LLP has just made a noteworthy lateral hire with the hire of Beth Nay. Nay has had 25 years of experience in the field of commercial litigation. Nay was most recently with Lewis Rice & Fingersh LC. Her new firm, Kutak Rock, has about 400 attorneys across 16 cities.
Source: www.bizjournals.com
Tags: Kutak Rock LLP
Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. has boosted its Los Angeles office with a new partner hire. Donald Urrabazo will join the litigation practice as a partner. He was formerly with Fox Rothschild LLP.
Source: www.pr-inside.com
Tags: Los Angeles
Gary Ticoll, along with four associates, have joined the law firm of Greenberg Traurig. Ticoll will practice bankruptcy law out of New York in the Business Reorganization and Bankruptcy group. He brings along associates Sohyoung Choo, Jack C. Lundstedt, Jr., Denise J. Penn and Kaitlin R. Walsh. All mentioned previously practiced with Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP.
Source: www.bankruptcy.law360.com
Tags: Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, LLP | New YorkMcKee Nelson has released the names of those partners departing for Ashurst. These 11 partners are recruited by their new firm to help lead its new offices in Washington DC and New York. Those on their way to the New York office are: Douglas Bird, Eugene Ferrer, Thomas Glushko, William Gray, Steven Kopp, David Nirenberg, Patrick Quill, Michael Voldstad and Alice Yurke. Partners Richard Davis and Scott Faga are to join the Washington office. The number of associates taken along for the ride to Ashurt has not been disclosed.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
Tags: New York
Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) has released a study conducted from surveys of 100 US law firms. It found that in the 2008 year, only 23 firms have a rate of 40% women promoted to partner. 14 firms did not promote one single female to partner. Those include the following: Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; Cleary Gotlieb Steen & Hamilton; Dechert; Foley Hoag; Kaye Scholer; Lowenstein Sandler; Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy; Schulte Roth & Zabel; Steptoe & Johnson; Strook & Strook & Lavan; Venable; Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; White & Case; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
Dickstein Shapiro and Cravath, Swaine & Moore had an impressive figure; 67% of the two firm’s newly promoted partners were women in 2008. Many firms’ new partner classes were at least 50% including: Andrews Kurth; Arent Fox; Baker & Daniels; Bryan Cave; Hogan & Hartson; Holland & Hart; King & Spalding; Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Sullivan & Cromwell; and Wiley Rein.
Source: www.law.com
WilmerHale has recently introduced additional titles, such as senior associate and special counsel. These join the current titles of associate, counsel, and partner. For those nearing retirement, the firm has utizlized the term, senior partner. For those senior partners who stay past WilmerHale’s normal retirement age, the word senior counsel is given.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
While many firms have made redundancies in the recent past/present, some of those same US firms are currently planning on growing their Asia practices. Proskauer Rose LLP has just launched an office in Hong Kong and is already in the midst of making plans to birth another one. Slaughter and May is also waiting on the necessary approval to open its own office in China. China has seen a 19 percent increase of foreign firms since 2006, bringing the total to 177 firms today. Hong Kong has doubled its foreign firms (now 66) since 2004. It may seem silly in the face of a global economic downfall, but law firms are merely following suit in the global expansion of clients. This growth may be due to the following facts: China has the third largest ecomony and the world’s largest foreign currency reserves.
Source: www.bloomberg.com
Tags: Beijing
It is official; the first firm in the Middle East has cut jobs. That honor goes to Trowers & Hamlins. Trowers has spent the last four decades in the region, without ever having to say the word redundancy. Until now. The firm has let go 5 attorneys in Dubai, and has made an attorney in each Muscat and Riyadh redundant. This may be just the beginning of a legal decline, in the once booming middle east. Growth in the region has recently been substantial, as the following firms have launched offices there: Dewey & LeBoeuf, Clifford Chance, Latham & Watkins, King & Spalding, Hogan & Hartson, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Allen & Overy, Curtis Mallet-Prevost, and Shearman & Sterling.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
Tags: Dubai
On the Above the Law website, a tip was posted stating that layoffs at Pillsbury were known ahead of time because of a cell phone conversation overheard on the subway in New York. Apparently Robert Robbins, head of the firm’s corporate and securities group, leaked the news to the eavesdropper and eventually, to the world. Pillsbury confirmed the gossip, when there-soon-after, the firm officially announced layoffs. Who wouldn’t want to get paid to sit on their butts for a year? But, wait. There is a catch. Serious candidates must have a proposal of their own. They must write a letter explaining how they will fill their time expanding skill sets. And, the successful candidates will also have some contact with the firm during smaller projects.
Source: www.legaltimes.typepad.com
Tags: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP