Thompson & Knight announced that effective Aug. 1, its first and second-year associates will receive a pay raise. In all of its U.S. offices, starting salaries will be $160,000 and those for second-years will be $170,000. The compensation structure for other associate classes has yet to be determined. This Dallas-based firm is the fifth TX firm behind Vinson & Elkins, Andrews Kurth, Locke Liddell & Sapp, and Susman Godfrey to raise associate salaries in the last two weeks.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Jones Day recruited Weston Loegering for its litigation practice in Dallas. Loegering joins the firm from Hughes & Luce as a partner. He has done work in civil and criminal litigation, as well as white collar crime defense, securities litigation, and class actions. Jones Day employs more than 2,200 lawyers in 30 offices around the world.
Source: www.lawfuel.com

Federal prosecutor Katya Jestin has joined Jenner & Block as a partner in the New York office. She will work in the firm’s litigation department and the white collar criminal defense and counseling practice. Jestin was most recently the Deputy Chief of the Organized Crime & Racketeering Section of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. She is most noted for her convictions of Peter Gotti and his 16 co-defendants on charges of racketeering, money laundering, wire fraud and extortion. Jenner & Block has more than 450 lawyers in offices in Chicago, Dallas, New York and Washington, D.C.
Source: www.prnewswire.com

After hiring an 18-lawyer capital markets team from Kilpatrick Stockton, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal has opened an office in Charlotte, NC. John Suhr, Jonathan Nugent and James Tucker all joined Sonnenschein as partners, along with counsels Linde Carley and Keith Jones, and 13 associates. The partners, who will be heading Sonnenschein’s capital markets practice, specialize in commercial real estate finance and equity investment by traditional and capital markets lenders. Sonnenschein has been expanding recently, having announced in March plans to open in Silicon Valley; the firm also intends to open in Dallas.
Source: www.legalweek.com

Longtime labor & employment powerhouse, Littler Mendelson, is finally facing some competition from regional firms and boutiques. With 617 lawyers and 41 U.S. offices, Littler is the largest labor & employment firm in the U.S. The San Francisco-based firm has expanded greatly in recent years, adding 13 new offices since the start of 2005. However, other firms are following suite and becoming more national in scope. Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart has added six offices in the last three years; 400-lawyer Jackson Lewis also added six. Two Atlanta-based firms, Fisher & Phillips and Ford & Harrison have pushed beyond the Southeast, together opening more than 12 offices in cities such as Dallas, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Philadelphia. The firms’ expansion is generally a part of a strategy to compete nationally, though most deny that they follow other firm’s into specific markets.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Seven real estate lawyers from varied firms have joined Thompson & Knight in its New York and Dallas offices. The New York office hired John B. Wood and Bohdan “Bud” S. Kosvych from Sussman, Sollis, Tweedy & Wood. In Dallas, Jay Gibson and Laura McClellan joined as partners, while Misty Willcox, Sean D. Hawkins and Meg Squiers joined as associates. Gibson came from Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons; McClellan left Foster Pepper in Seattle; Willcox came from Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr; Hawkins left Vinson & Elkins; and Squiers returned to Thompson & Knight after taking a leave. These new additions boost the firm’s real estate and banking practice to 54 lawyers.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Gary Short has joined Jones Day as a partner in the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice. Working out of the Dallas office, Short will focus on the treatment of employee benefit plans and executive compensation in business transactions. He also has done work designing, implementing, and administering benefit plans; he has handled governmental plans as well. Short was formerly a partner with Vinson & Elkins. Jones Day is one of the world’s largest law firms, with over 2,200 laywers practicing in 30 offices around the world.
Source: www.home.businesswire.com

Bracewell & Giuliani’s Dallas office has hired a new labor & employment team. Robert E. Sheeder and Marc D. Katz, formerly partners in Jenkens & Gilchrist’s Dallas office, will join as partners. Sheeder’s practice focuses on employment-related litigation, arbitration, employment discrimination and representing employers in collective bargaining and labor union organization campaigns. Katz focuses on the management-side of labor and employment litigation and counseling. Gail N. Salcido and Donna G. Hiltenbrand will also join Bracewell & Giuliani as associates.
Source: www.home.businesswire.com

Tyree C. Collier has joined Thompson & Knight as a partner in the Tax practice of the Dallas office. Collier specializes in the representation of nonprofit organizations, including large and small private foundations, hospitals and health systems, university-affiliated organizations, private schools, fundraising organizations, other types of public charities, and non-charitable tax exempt organizations. Thompson & Knight has around 420 attorneys in offices in North America, South America, Europe, and Africa.
Source: www.clickpress.com

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal has opened a new Dallas office. U.S. attorney, Matthew Orwig, will join the law firm on June 1 to serve as Dallas managing partner and national chair of Sonnenschein’s Government Litigation and Investigations Group. Cyberlaw attorney Matthew Yarbrough and ERISA lawyer David Cowart are also immediately joining the office as partners. Yabrough joins from Fish & Richardson, and Cowart from the now-dissolved Jenkens & Gilchrist. The Dallas office will focus on intellectual property litigation, government litigation and investigations, health care enforcement and compliance, and ERISA. Sonnenschein expects to seek new office space within a year as its new office expands.
Source: www.lawfuel.com