Wake Up Call: Baltimore Taps Firms as City Considers Bridge Suit

Welcome to Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call, a daily rundown of the top news for lawyers, law firms, and in-house counsel.

• The city of Baltimore has hired DiCello Levitt and Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Trial Lawyers as the Baltimore Law Department considers litigation against the owner of the cargo ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge March 26, causing its collapse. Claims could include economic and environmental losses, said Adam Levitt of DiCello Levitt. (Reuters)
• Women lawyers in South Korea “are still vastly under-represented at all levels of the legal profession.” According to data from the Korean Bar Association, there were just over 28,000 lawyers practicing in the country in 2023, of which 29 percent were women. By comparison, more than half of all the attorneys in the Netherlands, Chile, and Spain were women. (International Bar Association)
• Last weekend’s Masters golf tournament winner Scottie Scheffler shouldn’t have far to look if he needs a new business manager—Diane Scheffler, his mom, until recently worked as Foley Hoag’s chief operating officer. Diane Scheffler also has worked as a business manager for Skadden, and more recently as COO both for Thompson & Knight and Troutman Sanders. (People)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Irena Royzman has joined the life sciences team at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe in New York. She was the head of the life sciences practice at Kramer Levin.
• David Irvine has joined Gibson Dunn as a partner with the global finance practice group in London. He will co-chair Global Finance (Europe).
• April Nelson Ross, Rachel Raphael, and Mohamed Awan have joined Morgan Lewis as partners with the consumer class action and product liability practice. They join from Crowell & Moring.
• Mark Holmes has joined Vinson & Elkins as a partner with the finance practice in Houston. He was a partner at White & Case.
• Adam Z. Risell has joined the investment funds practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in Washington, DC. He joins from Cadwalader.
• Jacqui Bogucki has rejoined Weil Gotshal as a partner with the corporate department in Houston. She joins from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
• Daniel B. Besikof has joined Lowenstein Sandler as a partner in the bankruptcy and restructuring department in New York.
• Denny Kwon has joined the corporate and M&A practice at Freshfields in Silicon Valley.
• Daniel Wu has joined Thompson Coburn as a partner with the business litigation practice in Los Angeles. He practiced as a shareholder at Buchalter.
• Stephen Shore has joined Littler as a shareholder in Toronto. He joins from Ogletree Deakins.
• Mike Kilgarriff has joined Ballard Spahr as a partner with the litigation department and commercial litigation and dispute resolution and consumer financial services group in Denver.
• Abdallah Maher has joined White & Case as a partner with the global mergers and acquisitions practice in Riyadh. He joins from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
• Michael R. Graif has joined Brown Rudnick as a partner with the intellectual property group and the trademark, copyright, and advertising practice in New York. He chaired the IP group at Curtis Mallet-Prevost and was a partner at Mintz Levin.
• Nina Howell has joined Reed Smith as a partner with the energy and natural resources group in London. She joins from King & Spalding.
• Patricia McCarvill has joined Taylor Wessing as a tax partner in Dublin.