Another Blow for Squire Patton Boggs, This Time from Steptoe

In what marks the latest in a continuing series of exits from Squire Patton Boggs in the aftermath of its acquisition of Patton Boggs, Steptoe & Johnson announced Monday it had acquired a group of seven lawyers from the shrinking firm.

From Steptoe’s lengthy release:

Steptoe & Johnson LLP is pleased to announce ... the arrival of Micah Green and his six-member team. Mr. Green, who has joined the firm as a partner in the Washington office, will lead the firm’s Financial Services practice and co-chair the Government Affairs & Public Policy Group.

Also joining Steptoe as partners are Carolyn Walsh and Matthew Kulkin, and as senior policy advisors Michael Dunn, a former commissioner and acting chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Richard Shilts, a former director of the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight. Two associates, Mara Giorgio and Grace Kim, round out the group.

Green has worked closely with financial regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC on rulemaking, with a particular focus on the swaps market, according to Steptoe. His listed clients include The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, and the Wholesale Markets Brokers Association Americas.

Previously, he was tax legislative counsel at MCI Communications and before that, he lobbied Congress for the National Association of Realtors.

Dunn was a CFTC commissioner for seven years and served as acting chairman in 2010. He has held seven presidentially appointed positions, including Undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, involving oversight of federal regulation and policy.

Shilts is a four-decade veteran of the CFTC, who served nine years as the director of the Division of Market Oversight in which he worked on rule-writing emanating from Title VII of Dodd-Frank, which established an entirely new regulatory framework governing the swaps, futures, and commodities markets. He was also “responsible for the CFTC’s oversight of derivatives exchanges and surveillance of trading activity for commodity futures and swap markets in the U.S., according to Steptoe.

The additions provide a boost to Steptoe’s Financial Services practice group, which announced earlier this month it had added partner Dan Mullen, who served as an investigations branch chief within the federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s enforcement office between 2008 and 2013.

Meanwhile, since Squire Sanders acquired Patton Boggs last summer to become Squire Patton, it has seen a long list of partners exit the newly-merged firm:

• In April, Douglas Boggs, a mergers and acquisitions specialist whose late father Thomas founded and served as chairman of Patton Boggs, departed for Manatt.

• In February, Robert Luskin, a prominent white collar criminal defense lawyer who has represented Karl Rove and Chris Christie, left to join Paul Hastings.

• Also in February, the firm’s former managing partner, Stuart Pape, joined the law firm Polsinelli.

There have been other notable departures as well. So far, Squire Patton has not responded to requests for comment for this article.