Several firms that entered the L.A. market last year are celebrating a successful first year. Despite the competitive lateral market, these firms have managed to significantly increase their headcounts. Goodwin Procter, had a particularly good year in California, opening two offices in L.A. and others in San Diego, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. Steptoe & Johnson has grown their Century City office to 22 lawyers, finding success in recruiting in West L.A. Whereas Steptoe has grown using a lateral-by-lateral approach, Venable has built its L.A. office by combining two local 10-lawyer boutiques.
Source: www.law.com
D.C. based Dickstein Shapiro has added four attorneys from Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner’s L.A. office, which has seen more than a dozen departures since its fall merger. Partners James Turken and Amy Rubinfeld, along with two associates from Thelen’s commercial litigation group have joined the 20-lawyer office in L.A. Thelen’s office now has about 50 attorneys, down from 65 at the time of its merger with Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner.
Source: www.nylawyer.com
DLA Piper has raised starting salaries in its Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices to $160,000. Sacramento first-years will get $145,000. Earlier in the year the firm raised salaries for CA intellectual property associates to $160,000 but left all other associates at $145,000. The firm assured associates that the raise will not mean higher billing rates, an increase benchmark hours requirements, or a reduction in bonus pay.
Source: www.law.com
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman is the latest large California-based firm to raise salaries. Its San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego offices will have the $160,000 starting salary, and Sacramento first-years will earn $145,000. LA-based Munger, Tolles & Olson also raised first-year pay to $160,000, and San Francisco’s Shartsis Friese went up to $165,000. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips announced that on Jan. 1 it would also match the $160,000 rate.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has hired Heiko Kai Schultz as of counsel in the Los Angeles office. Schultz was formerly a partner with Kirkland & Ellis. His commercial litigation practice handles intellectual property, bankruptcy, securities, accounting malpractice and environmental litigation.
Source: www.lawfuel.com
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton has announced that first-year associates in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. will now earn $160,000. However, the L.A.-based firm is upping the hours-based bonus requirement from 2,000 to 2,100 hours. According to the firm managing partner, in 2007 the extra cost will come out of partner profits rather than increased rates. Seyfarth Shaw also raised its San Francisco and L.A. starting salaries to $145,000.
Source: www.law.com
California salary increases continue as Chicago firm Winston & Strawn is the latest to bump up starting pay to $160,000. The firm has about 70 associates in its San Francisco and Los Angeles offices. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld also applied the NY scale to its CA offices and its D.C. headquarters. Cooley Godward Kronish also increased first-year salariess firmwide to the $160K pay scale.
Source: www.nylawyer.com
This week Bingham McCutchen acquired 40-lawyer L.A. litigation firm Alschuler Grossman. Name partner and legal powerhouse, Marshall Grossman, had wanted to join up with a national firm for over a year, and discussions finally started in November. Alschuler’s former name partners Stanton Stein and Robert Kahan, on the other hand, did not want to go national, and so on Jan. 1 they left with 35 lawyers to form Dreier, Stein & Kahan. The merger is beneficial for both firms as Bingham was weak in litigation, and Alschuler found itself lacking a corporate componenet when Stein and Kahan departed. Bingham now has more resources for expansion in Southern California; with three acquistions in California over the past five years, the firm is growing significantly in the Sunshine State.
Source: www.law.com
Loeb & Loeb has hired three more lawyers for its LA office. Laura Wytsma, a patent litigation partner in Los Angeles, comes from Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. The firm also brought in two associates, Timothy Bellamy and Paul Sagan, for the entertainment and media group. The firm now has 260 attorneys, up from 195 in 2005. Earnings also increased last year; the firm reported a 23 percent increase in revenue and a 27 percent boost in profits per partner. After hard times in the mid-1990s, Loeb & Loeb has rebounded nicely, increasing profitability by remaining midsized and focused. This success has attractive top lateral candidates; already nine lawyers have joined the firm this year.
Source: www.nylawyer.com
Three new corporate lawyers have joined Reed Smith’s Los Angeles offices. Irell & Manella partner Ken Ikari and O’Melveny & Myers counsel Susan Alker are joining the firm’s LA office as partners, and Alschuler Grossman partner Ramsey Hanna is joining the Century City office as counsel. Reed Smith’s corporate and securities group has grown to 140 lawyers over the past few years. All three lawyers cite Reed Smith’s national and international platform as a big draw to the firm; the firm has over 1,500 lawyers and 21 offices worldwide.
Source: www.law.com
Three senior corporate finance attorneys have joined Reed Smith. Susan Alker, formerly of O’Melveny & Myers, and Ken Ikari, formerly of Irell & Manella, join Reed Smith as partners in the firm’s Los Angeles office; Ramsey Hanna, formerly of Alschuler Grossman, joins the firm as counsel in the firm’s Century City office. These hires are representative of the firm’s committment to growing its Southern California practice, as well as to meeting the needs of its corporate clients in the region. As one of the 15 largest law firms in the world, Reed Smith has over 1,500 lawyers and 21 offices worldwide.
Source: www.lawfuel.com
Goodwin Proctor has recruited biotechnology lawyer Stephen Ferruolo from Heller Ehrman to launch an office in San Diego. Ferruolo is also vice president and general counsel for Biocom, the region’s biotechnology industry organization. Partner Ryan Murr, several associates and a paralegal are also leaving Heller Ehrman’s life sciences practice for Goodwin Proctor. The firm’s new San Diego office is a part of its “California initiative”; Goodwin now has two offices in LA, one in San Francisco, and one in San Diego.
Source: www.signonsandiego.com
