Sidley Hires Simpson Thacher L.A. Head

Sidley Austin announced it has hired the longtime head of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett’s Los Angeles office.

Dan Clivner, managing partner of Simpson’s Los Angeles office since 1998 and a prominent corporate and private equity lawyer, will launch an office for Sidley in Century City and become co-managing partner of its already-established office in downtown Los Angeles, where he will split his time.

Contacted Thursday, Clivner declined to comment for this article, citing the fact that he is still a partner at Simpson Thacher.

By many accounts, Clivner is a big deal in the California corporate legal world. He regularly leads transactions in private equity, telecom, media and entertainment and retailing, including what Sidley estimated to be more than $18 billion of such transactions since 2012.

His Simpson Thacher profile shows that he advised Transaction Network Services, Inc. in the sale of its Payment Gateway Services business to MasterCard Incorporated late last year. His other clients include Siris Capital, Universal Studios, Inc. and CBS Corporation.

“He is an excellent, well-respected lawyer, and it’s a real coup for Sidley, and a real loss for Simpson Thacher,” said Michael Woronoff, managing partner of Proskauer Rose’s Los Angeles office, who is an M&A lawyer and knows Clivner personally.

People close to Clivner said that his decision to move stemmed from his own doubts about Simpson Thacher’s commitment to invest in Los Angeles.

“He was impressed by our firm’s commitment to Los Angeles, and California generally, and I think that he had concerns about what was Simpson’s future in that particular market, and whether there was some lack of resolve, and whether he was convinced that there was genuine enthusiasm about expanding,” said Carter Phillips, chair of Sidley Austin’s executive committee.

Asked whether there was concern about the portability of Clivner’s business — since Simpson Thacher is known for having a stable of institutional clients — Phillips said that Clivner’s situation is different because he has been based in a Los Angeles satellite office, away from the New York mothership.

“That’s a much tougher issue if you were talking about taking someone out of their New York office,” he said. “Then their ability to circle the wagons becomes much more substantial. You’re talking about a practice that has a more California focus on it. I don’t think that they have anyone with the capabilities of handling the matters to the extent that Dan has.”

A Simpson Thacher spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sidley, which places 150 of its 1,900 lawyers in Los Angeles, accoording to Los Angeles managing partner Michael Kelley, has one of the the largest — if not the largest — presence in Los Angeles for an out-of-state law firm.

Simpson Thacher is a Wall Street powerhouse that has about 29 members in the city.

Asked whether Sidley would hire additional lawyers from Simpson Thacher, Phillips declined to comment. He said that he hopes to expand the Century City office “now that the media industry seems to be moving in a much more aggressive and almost colliding way with content and technology.”

“I wouldn’t open an office just for the benefit of Dan, as much as I like him,” said Phillips. “Our expectation is that we will find additional colleagues who we will add, and my hope is that will happen sooner rather than later.”

Clivner was placed at Sidley by recruiter Sabina Lippman of Lippman Jungers.