Perkins Coie announced today that Marcelo Halpern has joined the firm as Partner in the Licensing & Technology practice in Chicago. He joins the firm from Latham & Watkins.

Edward V. Anderson has joined Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as a partner in the firm’s 75-attorney Intellectual Property practice group, based in the firm’s Palo Alto office.  Anderson joins from Sidley Austin in Palo Alto, where he led the firm’s Northern California IP practice.  In January, partner Jill Pietrini joined Sheppard Mullin’s Century City office from Manatt, where she previously chaired the firm’s Intellectual Property practice group.  In October, Sheppard Mullin partner and co-chair of the IP practice group Nick Setty joined the firm’s Palo Alto office from Fish & Richardson, where he founded and was managing principal of its Atlanta office and resided part-time in its Silicon Valley office.  Special counsel George Kanabe joined Setty from Fish & Richardson in Sheppard Mullin’s Palo Alto office in January.

SNR Denton announced today that Lisa M. Ledbetter has joined the firm as a partner in its Financial Institutions Regulatory practice. Ledbetter joins SNR Denton from Freddie Mac where she was most recently vice president and deputy general counsel. She previously served in several senior positions at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Ledbetter is resident in the firm’s Washington, DC, office.

In another positive development for the Tampa office of the statewide law firm Shutts & Bowen LLP, Tampa Managing Partner Alan Higbee announced that Matthew Blackshear joined the Tampa office as a partner on February 27, 2012.