Crowell & Moring has recently hired three bankruptcy and restructuring attorneys for its growing financial services team; the firm just added nine others to the same practice in February. Monique Almy joins the Corporate and Bankruptcy groups in Washington as a partner from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Mark Lichtenstein left Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney to join Crowell’s New York office as a partner. Finally Matthew Cheney, a bankruptcy and creditor’s rights lawyer, will also join the Washington office as counsel. The three lawyers add unique strengths to the Bankruptcy group and will also contribute expertise on litigation, loan workouts, and restructurings to the financial services team .
Source: www.prnewswire.com

Two pairs of NY lawyers have launched their own firms. Barbaros Karaahmetoglu and Thomas J. Luz have left their firms to form Karaahmetoglu & Luz, which focuses on international commercial and litigation matters. Carole C. Lamson and David A. Cutner have joined forces forming Lamson & Cutner, which specializes in the legal needs of the elderly and disabled and their families, focusing on Medicaid planning and asset protection.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Only a day after losing the head of its antitrust practice, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson has lost another top antitrust partner. Deborah Garza has been named deputy assistant attorney general for regulatory matters for the U.S. Department of Justice. With the DOJ she will oversee transportation, energy, agriculture, telecommunications and other regulated sectors. Garza’s departure along with that of Charles Rule, Fried Frank’s former antitrust chair, leaves the firm without a strong-DC based antitrust practice, though it still has some competition law expertise in New York and Europe.
Source: www.law.com

Kenneth M. Breen has left Fulbright & Jaworski for Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in New York. Breen is a white-collar criminal defense partner whose clients include former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who is the target of a federal investigation of a range of alleged misconduct. Prior to Fulbright, Breen was an Eastern District assistant U.S. attorney.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, Michigan’s largest corporate law firm, will open an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts this month. The 350-lawyer firm will be the only Michigan-based firm to have an office in Massachusetts; the firm already has offices in Michigan, New York, Florida, Canada and Poland. The new office will focus work on biotechnology and life sciences, intellectual property, and venture and technology. Cambridge is considered the life sciences industry’s most diverse and dynamic market, hence the firm’s desire to have a location there. To head the office, Miller Canfield has hired Raymond Arner, former Senior VP and Chief IP Counsel at Biogen Idec Inc., and Anne Marie Cook, Senior VP, Business and Corporate Development, General Counsel and Secretary of ViaCell, Inc.
Source: www.prnewswire.com

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft hired three new Special Counsels for its New York office. Michael Anglin has joined the firm’s Global Finance Department; he specializes in real estate finance, acquisitions, dispositions, and leasing. Christopher Mirick and Gary Ticoll have joined the Financial Restructuring group. Mirick practices in the areas of business reorganizations and debtors’ and creditors’ rights. Ticoll represents clients in chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and out-of-court financial restructurings.
Source: www.home.businesswire.com

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison has recruited former New York chief deputy attorney general, Michele Hirshman. Hirshman worked under ex-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and previously she was a prosecutor Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office. At Paul Weiss, Hirshman will focus on internal investigations and white-collar criminal defense.
Source: www.law.com

Two more Bingham McCutchen partners have joined Bracewell & Giuliani. Mark B. Joachim and Robert T. Carey will both become corporate partners in Bracewell’s New York office. Joachim represents investment funds and financial institutions, while Carey focuses on corporate finance and securities. Just last month two restructuring partners from Bingham also made the lateral move. Bracewell’s New York office houses about 33 of its 400 lawyers.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

John Campo and John Kinzey have left LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & McRae for Drier LLP. The two attorneys will join the firm’s Bankruptcy and Corporate Reorganization Department as partners in the New York office. With the new additions, this practice now has 15 lawyers firmwide; Campo and Kinzey are especially valuable for their litigation experience. These two will continue to focus their practice on representing debtors, trustees, secured lenders, and other parties-in-interest in both Chapter 11 proceedings and out-of-court workouts. Since its founding in 1996, Drier and its affiliates has grown to more than 150 lawyers and seven offices. The firm’s principal practices are commercial litigation, real estate, bankruptcy and corporate reorganization, employment law, corporate and securities, entertainment and intellectual property.
Source: www.prnewswire.com

Latham & Watkins’ former global vice chair of litigation has been hired by WilmerHale. Robert J. Gunther joins WilmerHale’s New York office as a partner in the intellectual property litigation group. Gunther, a veteran patent trial lawyer, was previously also the global chair of Latham’s IP, media and technology practice. WilmerHale has long been known for its strength in IP and IP litigation; the firm is looking to expand its 150-lawyer NY office.
Source: www.law.com