Harry Rubin has left Heller Ehrman for Ropes & Gray; he joins as a corporate partner and a partner in its Fish & Neave IP Group. William Stelwagon, a corporate and private equities attorney, has joined Fulbright & Jaworski as a senior counsel. Stelwagon was formerly employeed by Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Margaret Pierri left her partnership with the Fish & Neave IP Group of Ropes & Gray for Morrison & Foerster, where she will be a senior of counsel in the patent, life sciences, and litigation groups.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Goodwin Proctor is relocating its New York office to The New York Times building, at 620 Eighth Avenue. Joining fellow law firms Seyfarth Shaw, Covington & Burling and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, the firm will occupy the 23rd-27th, 29th, and 30th floors. The 216,000 square foot office will provide Goodwin with more space to accomodate its growing NY office; there are currently 150 employees there, but the firm expects to grow to 300 in the next eight years. Along with giving more space, the new office will also allow the firm to build a full-sized conference center and reception/catering area on the 26th floor and have access to the property’s auditorium and cafe on the ground floor.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Dewey Ballantine has hired two more corporate partners from the New York office of Reed Smith. Following two other former Reed Smith lawyers, John J. Altorelli and Jeffrey A. Potash, Patrick de Carbuccia and Alexander G. Fraser are joining Dewey as partners in the structured finance group. De Carbuccia and Fraser both focus on general corporate transactions, with a particular emphasis on private equity funds. Dewey is working on building up its structured finance practice in anticipation of the increased use of “asset-backed byouts” by private equity groups.
Source: www.law.com

Schiff Hardin has expanded its Energy/Federal Energy Regulatory Commission practice with the addition of eight lawyers and one legislative affairs specialist, formerly with Sullivan & Worcester. Two of the attorneys are launching a Schiff Hardin office in Boston, while the rest are joining the D.C. office. Schiff Hardin has almost 400 attorneys practicing law in offices located in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Lake Forest, New York, San Francisco, and Washington.
Source: www.lawfuel.com

Partner Andrew Troop and associate Chris Mirick have left Weil, Gotshal & Manges’ Boston office for Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York. Three other bankruptcy lawyers in New York also left for Cadwalader. With Troop’s departure, Weil now has no bankruptcy partners in Boston. Troop and Mirick’s move to NY partly stems from the fact that they conduct much of their business there. Weil plans to add about 12 bankruptcy lawyers over the next year.
Source: www.phoenix.bizjournals.com

Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks & Zarin of Springfield, NJ, will acquire Sinins and Bross of Newark, NJ, and be renamed as Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins. These two personal injury, medical-malpractice firms are joining forces to form a more competitive 15-lawyer firm. The merger gives Javerbaum the ideal Newark location, as some of their clients didn’t like traveling to Springfield; for Sinins, the merger provides some much needed man-power to the shrinking firm. Javerbaum has been growing over the past year, and is looking to expand further. Last summer, they took over the Freehold, NJ, practice of personal injury practitioner Paul Newell, and around the same time, they acquired a satellite office in Harrison: the workers’ compensation practice of former associate John Pinho.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Plaintiffs firm Seeger Weiss has opened a Philadelphia office with three class action attorneys from Philadelphia plaintiffs firm Sheller P.C. Jonathan Shub will be resident partner of the Philadelphia office along with two associates, TerriAnne Benedetto and Scott Alan George. Shub’s decision to move was due to a change in Sheller’s class action focus; his work focuses primarily on consumer class actions, but he also has a subspecialty in computer-defect cases. Seeger Weiss has offices in New York City, Newark, NJ, and Tulsa, OK; though the firm was not looking to open in Philly, the decision was easy when the opportunity arose. Already some of the firm’s lawyers spend time there, and it is one of few U.S. cities prominent in class action work.
Source: www.law.com

Epstein, Becker & Green has recruited seven real estate lawyers from the New York office of Roseland, N.J.’s Lowenstein Sandler. Adrian Zuckerman, the former head of Lowenstein Sandler’s New York real estate practice and a former deputy general counsel of real estate management company Helmsley Spear Inc., heads the group. He also will become co-head of Epstein Becker’s national real estate practice. Ralph Berman and Linda Bielik are also joining Epstein Becker as partners while Brian L. Ullman, Andrew R. Tulloch and Steven M. Ziolkowski will become counsels. One associate is also joining the firm. Epstein Becker has 380 attorneys in 11 offices throughout the country.
Source: www.law.com

January’s pay raises increased first year associate pay essentially across the board for large firms. Despite the pay increases, smaller intellectual property specialty firms are still managing to compete in the salary race. For example, New York’s 70-lawyer IP firm Frommer Lawrence & Haug has been paying its first-year associates $150,000 since July, when most large national general practice firms were still paying their first years $135,000. Chicago’s McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff also pays above the market rate for associates, raising its first year annual salary to $145,000 in early 2006, and raising it again this January to $150,000. The two largest IP firms, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner and Fish & Richardson have actually not only matched New York rates, but they have also made those rates effective nationwide. IP firms have always been ahead of the curve in terms of compensation because of their strong and steady income and low overhead pay.
Source: www.law.com

In preparation for an economic downturn NY firms are looking to expand their restructuring practices. Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Cravath Swaine & Moore and Dewey Ballantine are just a few of the firms that will most likely refigure their practices to keep up with an increase in that type of work. Some firms will be encouraging corporate lawyers to move into restructuring work, while others will be looking outside to recruit. Cadwalader has actually already hired a team of four bankruptcy lawyers from Weil Gotshal & Manges earlier this month.
Source: www.legalweek.com