Global law firm K&L Gates LLP has established its 40th office worldwide with the launch of a Charleston office, following the addition of a seven-partner team from Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP.
The new Charleston office and its lawyers, which create K&L Gates’ 24th location in the United States, will enhance the firm’s regional, national, and international capabilities in such practices as resort and hospitality, labor and employment, litigation, banking, tax, corporate/M&A, and real estate, among others.
Joining K&L Gates in establishing its Charleston office are partners Matthew J. Norton, J. Walker Coleman IV, Joshua W. Dixon, Theodore B. Manuel, Bryan L. Walpole III, Jason P. Walton, and James S. Bruce.
K&L Gates Chairman and Global Managing Partner Peter J. Kalis stated: “With its expanding port and with South Carolina’s distinctive business-friendly climate, Charleston is uniquely well positioned to continue to attract U.S. and international businesses. The practices of our new partners, moreover, nicely complement our firmwide resources and add leadership-caliber lawyers to our firm. As but one example, we expect that Matt Norton will be a leader in our global resort and hospitality practice.”
With a practice focusing on commercial real estate, resort development, hotels, golf, and real estate financing, Norton advises clients on projects and transactions throughout the southeastern United States, Caribbean, and Latin America.
“K&L Gates is the first law firm to establish an office in South Carolina that also has significant offices in world financial centers such as New York, London, Frankfort, Tokyo, Dubai, Hong Kong, and São Paulo,” said Norton. “As a result, K&L Gates is the ideal platform for Charleston and South Carolina’s growing and dynamic economy and our international resort and hospitality practice.”
As an experienced litigator who concentrates his practice on complex, high-stakes litigation with an emphasis on employment, intellectual property, commercial disputes, and class actions, Coleman represents regional, domestic, and multinational companies in industries ranging from athletic equipment and aviation to banking, health care, manufacturing, telecommunications, and textiles. Coleman is joined in the employment and commercial litigation areas by Dixon, whose practice also includes white collar criminal defense, internal investigations, and appellate litigation.
“The breadth and depth of K&L Gates’ practices, in combination with its global reach in a single integrated firm, uniquely suits the broader needs of our existing clients doing business around the world, as well as the firm’s multinational clients doing business in South Carolina,” noted Coleman.
Manuel, Walpole, and Walton work in the banking and tax group, where they represent lenders, servicers, and borrowers in a variety of financing transactions and agreements; banks, investment funds, and private equity firms in the acquisition, workout, and disposition of distressed assets; and real estate and resort developers in the financing, sale, and acquisition of properties, in addition to advising on the tax aspects of such transactions.
Bruce is a corporate transactional lawyer who represents Fortune 500, middle-market, and emerging growth companies across a variety of industries in transactions including mergers, stock and asset acquisitions and dispositions, and strategic joint ventures. He also has substantial experience handling distressed debt acquisitions and representing real estate developers and owners and operators of golf, hotel, and resort properties.
