Top DHS Official to Join WilmerHale

Alejandro N. Mayorkas, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, will join WilmerHale in November.

He will leave his post on Oct. 28 and join Wilmer in early November, the law firm said in a press release.

“Ali knew many of the lawyers at this firm from personal relationships,” said Bob Novick, co-managing partner of WilmerHale, in an interview. “When he decided it was time to leave and after he had recused himself from a number of matters, he expressed interest (in the firm).”

Mayorkas was not immediately available for comment.

President Obama nominated Mayorkas as deputy secretary in 2013 and his last day marks the first of what is expected to be a string of departures from the current administration leading up to the end of Obama’s tenure as president.

Mayorkas, a Cuban-American lawyer, also became head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2009 and served in that role until 2013. At the agency, he had a workforce of 18,000 people and a $3 billion annual budget.

He is the former U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles and was also a partner in O’Melveny & Myer’s Los Angeles office.

Novick, Wilmer’s co-managing partner, said that Mayorkas will devote his time to advising on civil and criminal litigation and internal investigations. Mayorkas will also work closely with the firm’s West Coast staff.

In other Law Firm news...

Schulte Roth & Zabel has announced it has hired Claudia K. Simon, an M&A and securities partner from Paul Hastings in New York.

Schulte provided a list of M&A matters the firm recently advised on:

* The $9.2-billion acquisition of Safeway, the second largest traditional supermarket in the United States;

* Marlin Equity Partners’ acquisition of the Teradata Marketing Applications business;

* Cerberus Capital Management’s acquisition of ABC Group, one of the world’s leading automotive suppliers of thermoplastic components and systems;

* Keane Group’s acquisition of the majority of Canada-based Trican Well Service’s U.S. assets; and

* Veritas Capital Management’s sale of Truven Health Analytics to IBM Watson Health for $2.6 billion.

Seyfarth Adds IP Boutique Lawyers

Seyfarth Shaw LLP announced on Wednesday that two intellectual property attorneys — Dean Fanelli, Ph.D. and Thomas Haag, Ph.D., founders of the IP boutique Fanelli Haag PLLC — have joined as partners in Washington D.C.

In addition to the founders, the Fanelli Haag team of lawyers and patent agents also will be moving over to Seyfarth: King Lit Wong, Ph.D.; Maria L. Maebius; Parithosh K. Tungaturthi, Ph.D.; and Alex Li, Ph.D. Wong comes aboard as senior counsel and Maebius as counsel.

-- With assistance from Tripp Baltz at Bloomberg BNA

(CORRECTED: This story has been corrected. Schulte Roth served as legal advisor on the M&A deals the firm provided. A previous version of this story reported that Simon advised on the deals.)

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