Duane Morris has added three partners to its Pittsburgh construction litigation team. Albert Bates and Edward Gentilcore joined mid-April from Reed Smith, and John Tedder recently followed. Duane Morris’ construction practice has 43 attorneys firmwide, compared to Reed Smith’s 23. The practice will be particularly focused on nuclear power and international arbitration; the group’s lawyers will represent the builders, designers, and owners of nuclear power plants. Duane Morris recently formed a nuclear power group by combining its construction and energy practices. The firm is looking to expand this new group in Houston especially, as well as New York and Miami.
Source: www.law.com

Fulbright & Jaworski has gained four litigation partners from fallen Texas firm Jenkens & Gilchrist. Rodney Acker, Theodore Daniel, Ellen Bush Sessions and Guy Wade will all join Fulbright’s Dallas office as partners. This is the second group of Jenkens partners that Fulbright has recruited. In January, the entire Houston tax team joined Fulbright.
Source: www.thelawyer.com

Jones Day has hired former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, Bruce McDonald. McDonald will work in the firm’s Houston and Washington, DC offices. He began his legal career at Jones Day in 1988, and has worked in the DOJ doing civil antitrust enforcement since 2003. McDonald has experience in a variety of areas including telecommunications, aviation, electricity, and healthcare industries. With over 2,200 lawyers practicing in 30 locations worldwide, Jones Day is one of the world’s largest firms.
Source: www.home.businesswire.com

Texas lawyers have been on the move recently. Jeremy Gaston has joined Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw as a partner in Houston, while Jeffery Oldham has joined the firm as a litigation associate. Nickolas G. Spiliotis has joined Winstead’s Houston office as an associate with the labor and employment section. Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr’s Dallas office has hired three new attorneys: D. Ronald Reneker, shareholder, litigation; John L. Thompson, associate, litigation; and Brian P. DeVoss, senior associate, real estate.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

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

International firm, King & Spalding, announced the hiring of two new partners for its Houston office. Todd Mattingly joins the intellectual property practice from Haynes & Boone, and Steven D. Rubin joins the firm’s corporate group from Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Mattingly focuses on IP matters involving electrical and mechanical engineering, while Rubin deals in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, restructurings and other financing transactions. Including these two new additions, the Houston office has acquired 11 new partners over the last 18 months. In total, the firm’s Houston office has over 100 attorneys.
Source: www.marketwire.com

Fort Worth, TX-based firm Kelly, Hart & Hallman will be opening an office in Houston within the next few months. Two Houston partners from Vinson & Elkins, along with former Enron Corp. general counsel James V. Derrick Jr. and Kelly Hart partner J. Clark Martin, will open the new office. Representatives from Kelly Hart claimed a friendly relationship between the two firms; Vinson & Elkins’ management declined comment. The new Houston office has room to grow, with space for 15 attorneys.
Source: www.law.com

Next month, Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Martin of Houston, TX will be expanding. With the acquisition of three partners and one associate from the Philadelphia office of Washington, D.C.’s Miller & Chevalier, Chamberlain Hrdlicka will open their own office in Philly. Herbert Odell, Philip Karter and Kevin Johnson will join Chamberlain Hrdlicka as shareholders. Jonathan Prokup joins the firm as a senior associate. Chamberlain Hdrlicka started in 1965 as a regional tax boutique, but later added an office in Atlanta; there is the possibility that another office may open by the summer in Washington D.C.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

On Jan. 17, San Francisco’s Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold opened in Houston with the arrival of four new attorneys. Carrie Weitinger, Julia Adams, and associate Monica Fendler are leaving Houston’s Westmoreland Hall to join the new office; former Germer Gertz associate Shannon Thorne is also coming aboard. Sedgwick’s TX managing partner reported that the firm wanted to open an office in Houston because the city is one of the country’s major litigation centers. Opened in 2001, Dallas was the firm’s first Texas office, and Austin was second in 2006. In total, Sedgwick has 370 attorneys in 13 offices worldwide.
Source: www.nylawyer.com