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

Day Pitney, a law firm resulting from a January merger of Florham Park, NJ’s Pitney Hardin and Hartford, CT-based Day, Berry & Howard, joined its New York offices at 7 Times Square last week. The joint firm occupies 53,000 square feet of the building’s 19th through 21st floors. There are about 50 lawyers and 50 support staff in the new office. The firms’ goal in merging was to establish a presence in New York and broaden their services to reach other northeastern cities between Boston and Washington, D.C. They also aimed to expand their practice in the areas of intellectual property, commercial litigation and energy and corporate investigations.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Real estate lawyer, Farid Maluf, has joined Sidley Austin’s New York office as a partner. He has experience in capital markets real estate lending and finance, as well as acquisitions and sales. Maluf advises investment banks, private equity funds, pension fund advisors, and other domestic and foreign financial institutions in complex real estate and real estate finance transactions, such as fixed and floating rate financings, construction and renovation financings for large office buildings, residential facilities, luxury hotels, condominiums, shopping center developments and mixed-use projects, leasehold and sale-leaseback financing, and mezzanine loans. Sidley’s 100 plus real estate lawyer are skilled in commercial real estate transactions. The firm has 1,700 attorneys practicing in 15 offices worldwide.
Source: www.sev.prnewswire.com

San Francisco boutique, Topel & Goodman, is set to merge with New York firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman on April 1. The seven-lawyer boutique has made a name for itself in white-collar criminal defense, but the firm’s two partners feel that Kasowitz’s 230 lawyers will help to provide the backup needed to take on larger criminal cases and ancillary civil cases. For Kasowitz, the deal provides criminal defense capabilities and a West Coast presence. Kasowitz Benson focuses on general litigation, creditors’ rights and bankruptcy, employment, intellectual property and family law. The two firms hope to double the number of lawyers in the San Francisco office in the next year.
Source: www.law.com

New York’s Bracewell & Giuliani is expanding its NYC headquarters. The firm is taking over the 18th floor of 1177 Sixth Avenue in addition to its 19th floor offices, doubling its space to 49,000 square feet. The firm has 40 attorneys in New York now, but plans to add 20 to 30 more over the next year. Bracewell’s corporate and litigation practices especially have been growing.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Hogan & Hartson is preparing to move its market-leading US real estate investment trusts (Reits) practice to London. The 16-partner practice is based primarily in Washington DC, although it has partners based in New York, North Virginia, Warsaw and Berlin. With this strategic move, Hogan & Hartson is aiming to take advantage of the fact that listed property investment companies are now being introduced in the UK. In the US, the firm has handled some of the largest Reits cases including the $8.9 billion acquisition of Trizec by Brookfield Properties.
Source: www.thelawyer.com

Two partners from Bingham McCutchen’s Financial Restructuring group are moving to Bracewell & Giuliani. Robert D. Flaschen and Gregory W. Nye join the firm as partners in its New York office, and it is rumored that more Bingham financial restructuring attorneys will follow their lead. Flaschen and Nye represent hedge and private equity funds, institutional investors, secured lenders, insurance companies and other financial institutions, as well as acquirers of distressed assets in complex workouts and insolvency matters. Flaschen has been named twice to Euromoney’s list of the Top 25 “Best of the Best” insolvency lawyers in the world; he also was the only U.S. restructuring lawyer included in Asialaw’s “Leading Lawyers 2006.”
Source: www.lawfuel.com

After less than two years at the firm, former New York state Attorney General John Farmer Jr. has left Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. Citing money as the main motivation, Farmer has joined John Arseneault’s criminal defense boutique in Chatham as a partner. Farmer brought along with him K&L Gates partner, John Azzarello, a former assistant U.S. attorney, and associate Joshua Gillette. John and Mary Whipple of Morristown have also joined the firm, bringing the firm which is now known as Arseneault, Whipple, Farmer, Fassett & Azzarello to 11 attorneys. For Farmer and Azzarello, the new firm better supports their concentration of white-collar criminal practice and internal corporate investigations; they were also made equity partners, whereas at K&L Gates they were only income partners.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Sullivan & Cromwell has signed a lease on a new New York office at 55 Water Street. Occupying the entire 51st floor of the building, the firm holds 66,948 square feet of office space. Construction of the space is expected to be complete by early summer. The firm’s litigators will remain at the Manhattan headquarters at 125 Broad Street.
Source: www.nylawyer.com