Arent Fox Heading West

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Arent Fox makes its presence known in California with Tuesday’s takeover of Los Angeles-based, litigation boutique O’Brien Abeles. This is the first expansion for the Washington firm since they closed four offices starting in 1993, keeping open only the D.C. and NY headquarters. Besides O’Brien Ables’ nine lawyers, Arent Fox is also adding two new attorneys and relocating two others to the CA office. Arent Fox’s revenue was up 7.7 percent last year, grossing $153 million in revenue with 260 lawyers.
Source: www.law.com

Tags:  ArentFox Schiff LLP | Los Angeles

Duane Morris Opens in Baltimore

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Duane Morris recently opened a Baltimore, MD office adding three partners and one of counsel formerly of DLA Piper. The new attorneys will focus on corporate practice group, handling venture capital and private equity work, mergers and acquisitions and securities law work. The new office will be comprised of Jay Gordon Cohen, Keli Isaacson, Wilbert Sirota as chairman, and George Nemphos as managing partner.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Tags:  Duane Morris LLP

Latham & Watkins Ventures to Spain

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Latham & Watkins announced Monday that they will open offices in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain on Jan. 1. Chairman and managing partner, Robert Dell, expects to have six to eight lawyers in the new offices for the new year. The openings expands Latham’s European holdings to 10 offices. These branches will focus on mergers & acquisitions and private equity deals.
Source: www.law.com

Tags:  Latham & Watkins LLP

Fried Frank’s New Hong Kong Office

Monday, December 18, 2006

New York firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson announced that they will be opening a new office in Hong Kong. Nine partners from Simmons & Simmons of Britain have been recruited to move to this new office, along with 20 associates and six Fried Frank partners from the U.S. and Britain. This office opening comes four years after the proposed merger between Fried Frank and London’s Ashurst Morris Crisp. The merger would have been the first trans-Atlantic merger of firms of equal size, practice strength and profitability. But after over a year of no decisions, discussions of the deal ended in May 2003. Since then, Fried Frank has been expanding internationally on its own; its London office hosts 49 lawyers, Paris is home to 30, and the firm opened an office in Frankfurt in 2004.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Tags:  Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP | Hong Kong

Kirkpatrick Lockhart & Preston Gates Merge

Friday, December 15, 2006

Pittsburgh’s Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham and Seattle’s Preston Gates & Ellis are set to merge, effective Jan. 1. The new 1,400 attorney firm will be named Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis. Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, the larger of the two, has about 1,000 lawyers in offices in Pittsburgh, Washington D.C. and London, and New York. Preston Gates & Ellis has offices throughout the Northwest, in Asia and in Washington, D.C.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Tags:  K&L Gates LLP | New York

Asian Expansion for Bingham McCutchen

Thursday, December 14, 2006

A month after the announcement of the opening of a Hong Kong office, Bingham McCutchen plans to also open an office in Tokyo with 22 lawyers. The firm’s focus in Tokyo will be on its global restructuring practice. xJapan is the second-largest legal market in Asia for American attorneys, according to The National Law Journal. There are nearly twice as many attorneys there as there were in 2000 — but still remains much less than China — at 470 U.S.-based attorneys. The U.S. firm with the largest Japanese office is Morrison & Foerster, which opened in Tokyo in 1987 and now has more than 80 attorneys.
Source: www.law.com

Tags:  Tokyo

New Partners at Mayer Brown

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Mawe named 26 new partners effective Jan. 1. Six of the new partners are in New York. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison has also recently promoted three attorneys to the partnership.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Tags:  Mayer Brown LLP | New York

New Associates at Cantor Colburn

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

The Atlanta office of the intellectual property boutique, Cantor Colburn, has recently gained five associates, making a total of nine attorneys at that location. The new associates come from different places (Texas, Washington) and have varied backgrounds (examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, editor of IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review). To accomodate the increased numbers, the firm will move to a larger office on the same street in March.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Denver/LA Merger

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Denver firm Brownstein Hyatt & Farber and Las Vegas’ Schreck Brignone will merge on Jan. 1, 2007. The new firm will be called Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. After the merger, Brownstein Hyatt will have over 170 associates in seven different locations. The 25-attorney Schreck Brignone is known for its gaming practice, while Brownstein Hyatt has political, real estate, corporate and litigation practices. Bruce James of Brownstein Hyatt will remain CEO and managing partner of the new firm, and Schreck Brignone managing partner Ellen Schulhofer will join the executive committee.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Tags:  Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP | Los Angeles

Howrey’s New NY Office

Monday, December 4, 2006

With the acquisition of litigation boutique Engel McCarney & Kenney, D.C. firm Howrey opened a New York office. Partners Thomas Engel and James McCarney will be managing this location which will include six associates. Once known primarily as an intellectual property boutique, Howrey has grown into a general-practice firm with 600 lawyers. The firm also recently announced it was opening an office in Munich, Germany.
Source: www.law.com

Tags:  New York