Wake Up Call: Big Law Firms Beef Up Office Space With Expansions

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

• Office expansions accounted for nearly 43% percent of law firm leasing activity through the first nine months of the year, according to data from Savills Plc. The uptick—from nearly 29% over all of last year—was highlighted by Davis Polk’s renewal and expansion of 710,000 square feet in Manhattan. (Savills)
• New lawyers busted for using ChatGPT to create faulty legal documents have lost their jobs at firms in California and Colorado. Their sagas underscore the risks of using the burgeoning technology to perform legal tasks. (Washington Post)
• California’s Sher Edling, the law firm behind novel climate change litigation against the oil and gas industry, has received at least $2.5 million in grants from advocacy group New Venture Fund. The firm’s lawyers have sued on behalf several cities and states seeking to hold energy companies liable for climate change. (Fox News)
• Hunton Andrews Kurth has been hired by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares to go after the NCAA over its refusal to grant full bowl eligibility to James Madison University’s football team. The undefeated Dukes have been tied up by an NCAA rule limiting eligibility for schools transitioning to the highest level of college football. (The Athletic)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Gary Locke has joined Dorsey & Whitney as a senior advisor. He has served as a US ambassador to China, secretary of commerce under President Obama, and governor of the state of Washington, according to Dorsey.
• Kevin Rubino has returned to Sidley Austin as a partner in San Francisco, Calif. Rubino served as an assistant US attorney for the Northern District of California.
• Saadia Ghazi has joined Seyfarth Shaw as a partner in its servicing and special servicing practice in the real estate department based in New York. She joins from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
• Lucy F. Kweskin has joined Katten Muchin Rosenman as a partner in the insolvency and restructuring practice. She served as a global restructuring partner at Mayer Brown.
• Nikole K. Zoumberakis has joined Munger Tolles & Olson as a corporate partner in Los Angeles. She previously practiced at Buchalter Nemer.
• Giselle Joffre has joined Arnold & Porter as a partner in the white collar defense and investigations practice resident in Boston, Mass. Joffre is a former federal prosecutor for the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
• Christopher Frost, the founding name partner, has announced the launch of FROST LLP in Los Angeles, Calif.