Cooley Godward Kronish LLP has announced that Laura Grossfield Birger and Jenifer B. Coplan will be joining the firm’s New York office as partners. Birger, a trial attorney, was formerly the Chief of the General Crimes Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Coplan is an information technology and intellectual property law attorney who will leave Debevoise & Plimpton to join Cooley.
Source: dbusinessnew.com

Cooley Godward Kronish has two new partners in its New York office, but one of their former partners has moved on. Laura Grossfield Birger, a white-collar criminal defense attorney, and Jennifer B. Coplan, a technology licensing and outsourcing attorney, will join Cooley Godward. Paul M. Ritter, a compensation specialist, has accepted an offer to head the executive compensation practice at Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel.
Source: www.nylj.com

Randall Johnson and Bruce Wanamaker have formed a new NYC corporate boutique firm, Johnson Wanamaker. Wanamaker was previously a partner with Kilpatrick Stockton, and Johnson most recently was the general counsel and president of Xp Capital Inc., a company started to assist Latin American businesses in getting financing from Latin American banks based on their trade credits with U.S. companies. The firm will handle transactional matters and corporate counseling work for businesses that larger firms are not as equipped to help. The partners see themselves diving into a niche market for small firms who handle sophisticated matters but at a lower overhead cost than larger firms.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft has hired Christopher Hughes from intellectual property speciality firm, Morgan & Finnegan. Hughes joins the New York office as the head of the IP group and as a member of the litigation department. He has over 30 years of experience in complex patent, trade secret and trademark litigation, as well as licensing and intellectual property counseling. Hughes’ practice covers the U.S. and abroad, and deals with a variety of industries including computers and software, consumer products and industrial equipment, e-commerce and financial service matters, and mechanical and medical devices. Founded in 1792, Cadwalader is a AmLaw Top 50 firm with offices in New York, London, Charlotte, Washington and Beijing.
Source: www.newswire.com

President Bush signed the Foreign Investment and National Security Act on July 26, causing a scramble in New York and other major US cities for investment attorneys familiar with the new code. The new law came into being due to ever-increasing security concerns and as a response to a 2006 controversy involving DP World’s acquisition of a British port operator which owns several US ports. Attorneys familiar with the new law say it confirms the government’s changing attitude towards foreign investments in security sensitive areas.
Source: www.law.com

McKee Nelson’s Washington DC office is now the highest paying law firm in Washington, according to several sources. The young firm has grown exponentially since its foundation nearly a decade ago, and yet its 210 lawyers make more money than anyone else in the city, with revenue per lawyer over a million dollars a year and profit per partner at $1.7 million yearly. Reed Auerbach, the managing partner of McKee Nelson’s New York office, attributes this to the amount of power the firm gives their partners. Additionally, the company has been very focused in its acquisition of new clients.
Source: www.legaltimes.com

O’Melveny & Meyers has named partner Gregory Puff to head the firm’s Asian mergers & acquisitions practice in Hong Kong. Previously, Puff worked in O’Melveny’s Tokyo office. Previously the duties of the head Asian M&A partner were handled jointly by Asia practice head Howard Chia and Michael Moser, the co-chair of the China office. This structure change came about because of an increase in Asian transactions.

Bracewell & Giuliani LLP has hired Elizabeth L. McGinley as a tax partner in their New York office. McGinley specializes in mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, and real estate transactions. Previous to working for Bracewell, McGinley was counsel at Skadden. The New York office of Bracewell opened in April 2005 when Rudolph Giuliani joined the firm as a name partner, and the firm has been growing ever since.
Source: home.businesswire.com

Five Nixon Peabody attorneys have defected to Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. Alphonso E. Tindall, Jr., and Todd J. Peterson join as partners; Deborah H. Henry as counsel; and James Hughes and Gary Anderson as associates, all in the New York office. Tindall and Peterson will join forces with existing partners to establish an emerging markets practice group. Tindall will serve as the co-chair of the cross-border practice group, and Peterson is a partner in the private equity and venture capital practice group.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

The Washington, D.C. office of UK firm Clifford Chance has recruited three lateral partners from Sidley Austin. The litigation team consists of Juan Morillo, Steven Cottreau and Stephen Nickelsburg, whose work focuses primarily on white-collar crime and criminal defense, but also covers civil law. In addition to the Sidley laterals, Wendy Wysong, a senior lawyer with the US Government’s Bureau of Industry & Security has also joined the U.S. Litigation group as a partner. Clifford Chance has recently been putting a lot of effort into expanding its U.S. lawyer operation; hires have been made in New York and D.C.
Source: www.legalweek.com