Akerman LLP, a top 100 U.S. law firm serving clients across the Americas, today announced the expansion of its Los Angeles office with key additions to the firm’s Real Estate, Land Use, Corporate and Litigation Practices. Land use partners Ellen Berkowitz, Lisa Kolieb and Brady McShane, as well as senior urban planner Ellen Castillo join Akerman’s Real Estate Practice Group; partner Mark Liu joins the Corporate Practice Group, and partner Michael Weiss joins the Litigation Practice Group. With the addition of these five partners, Akerman has doubled the size of its Los Angeles office to 24 lawyers since 2015. More >>

National law firm Polsinelli announced today it has expanded its presence on the West Coast with the addition of Daniel W. Bir, the latest in the series of recent hires. Bir joined the firm’s national Products Liability and Toxic and Mass Tort litigation teams as a principal in its Los Angeles office. More >>

Paul Hastings LLP, a leading global law firm, announced today that Thomas Zaccaro and Nicolas Morgan have joined the Investigations and White Collar Defense practice as partners in the Los Angeles office. They and their team join from Zaccaro Morgan LLP, an SEC enforcement boutique that Mr. Zaccaro and Mr. Morgan co-founded in 2015 to focus on high-stakes complex civil litigation, SEC and other government investigations and defense, white collar criminal defense, and internal investigations. More >>

National labor and employment law firm Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP is pleased to welcome a new partner and a new senior counsel to its Century City office. More >>

Akin Gump today announced that Neal R. Marder has joined the firm in Los Angeles as a partner, adding significant depth to its West Coast litigation team. Mr. Marder, whose practice focuses on class and mass actions, bet-the-company litigation, and complex business and commercial litigation, comes to Akin Gump from Winston & Strawn, where he helped launch that firm’s Los Angeles office and chaired its national consumer class actions practice. More >>

Attorneys Brian D. Huben and Dustin P. Branch have joined Ballard Spahr as partners in Los Angeles, firm chair Mark Stewart announced today. Mr. Huben and Mr. Branch have extensive experience representing owners, developers, and managers of commercial real estate in litigation and bankruptcy matters. More >>