Atlanta’s King & Spalding has announced an that it will open an office in Charlotte, NC. The firm has already hired two partners from Kennedy Covington, and plans to build the office to about 50 lawyers in a year and a half. King & Spalding is the third national firm to announce expansion to Charlotte in the past few months; Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and Dewey Ballantine have already opened offices there. King & Spalding has more than 800 lawyers and is ranked in the AmLaw’s Top 100 firms.
Source: www.bizjournals.com

Davis Wright Tremaine has acquired three lateral attorneys for its intellectual property/patent law practice in Seattle. F. Ross Boundy joined from Christensen O’Connor Johnson Kindness PLLC, of Seattle; Melanie Haindfield left Seed Intellectual Property Law Group PLLC for Davis Wright; and Philip Hunt, formerly with the Beaverton, OR, office of Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman LLP also joined the the team.
Source: www.seattle.bizjournals.com

Jones Day has lost partner Pierre-Nicolas Ferrand to Shearman & Sterling’s Paris European Finance Group. Ferrand specializes in banking and structured finance, including property, asset and acquisition financing, for French and international institutions and investors. He also had done work in debt restructuring and insolvency. Shearman & Sterling has about 1,000 lawyers in 20 offices worldwide.
Source: www.law.com

McDermott Will & Emery has launched an Italian antitrust group with the hiring of Veronica Pinotti from Lovells. Pinotti, who will join the Rome office, has become a partner and the head of the new antitrust group. Lovells competition associate, Martino Sforza, is also joining McDermott in Rome. Last year the firm also hired former Hammonds competition partners Jose Rivas and Alasdair Bell to build up its European antitrust practice.
Source: www.legalweek.com

Townsend and Townsend and Crew’s new Washington, D.C. office will focus on patent litigation and patent prosecution. The mid-sized San Francisco-based IP firm will launch the new office with lawyers from Kenyon & Kenyon and McGuire Woods. Seven attorneys will open the office, but the firm hopes to grow over the next three years and eventually be able to offer full IP services there. It is beneficial for an IP firm to have an office in D.C., considering that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the International Trade Commission and the Federal Cicuit are also located there.
Source: www.law.com

Several major Chicago law firms have been making partner cuts over the past couple years. Firms such as Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw; Winston & Strawn; and Jenner & Block have asked groups of partners to leave or to take nonequity positions. As such, there are many talented, experienced attorneys seeking jobs, and small and mid-sized firms are snatching them up. Firms like Bryan Cave and Seyfarth Shaw are eager to hire the partners, especially those with private equity, intellectual property, transactional, or real estate experience. These smaller firms are less concerned with profit-per-partner figures, and instead see value in the axed attorneys because of how they could increase the firm profile and increase marketing power among clients.
Source: www.law.com