Wake Up Call: Bracewell Matches Cravath Scale for Associate Pay

In today’s column, Kramer Levin launched a congressional investigations practice headed by the House’s former chief impeachment counsel; Barnes & Thornburg hired a six-lawyer life sciences group to open offices in New Jersey and Philadelphia; and Jones Day is launching a fintech accelerator program.

• Leading off, more than six months after Cravath Swaine & Moore set 2022’s Big Law standard for associate pay, Houston-based Bracewell is reportedly matching it. (Above The Law)
• Kramer Levin said it’s launching a congressional investigations practice in New York and Washington led by partner and litigation chair Barry H. Berke, who was chief impeachment counsel to the US House of Representatives in former President Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial. The group also includes Washington-based counsel Laurie Rubenstein, former attorney for the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. (KramerLevin.com)
• Following the US Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v Wade, voter interest in state supreme court elections has soared. (National Law Journal)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Former US Attorney General William Barr panned as “deeply flawed” the federal court decision granting Trump’s request for a special master to scrutinize documents seized by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound. (CNN)
• Standard-setters for conventional financial markets argue that norms that govern securities lending in traditional finance markets should be applied to crypto platforms. But adapting the norms won’t be simple, an attorney says. (CoinDesk)
• A Manhattan appeals court reinstated former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s license to practice law in the state. He resigned as AG in 2018 following reports that he was physically violent with romantic partners. (New York Law Journal)
• Bayer won its fifth straight defense verdict against claims that Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup causes cancer. (Law.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Barnes & Thornburg added a six-lawyer, four-partner, life sciences, litigation group from Faegre Drinker to open new offices in Philadelphia and New Jersey, giving it 22 US offices overall. Partner in charge for the new offices is Michael C. Zogby, who at Faegre Drinker was deputy leader of the products liability & mass tort group and co-chair of life sciences litigation. Also joining in New Jersey are partner Jessica Brennan and associate Kaitlyn Stone. Partners Chanda Miller and Molly Flynn and associate Rebecca Trela joined the Philadelphia office; Schulte Roth & Zabel grabbed Simpson Thacher & Bartlett regulatory counsel Allison Bernbach as a partner in New York in its investment management regulatory & compliance group; Goodwin Procter hired King & Spalding employment attorney Edward Holzwanger as a partner in Washington; Perkins Coie brought in former federal Judge Abdul Kallon as a partner in its litigation and labor & employment practices in Seattle. (PerkinsCoie.com)
• McGuireWoods picked up Hunton Andrews Kurth capital markets attorneys Lake Taylor and Lawton Way as partners in Richmond, Virginia; Carlton Fields said attorney Joe Ullo, former director of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s waste management division, joined the firm as a shareholder in its government law and consulting practice; Orrick hired former Baker Botts financial services regulatory special counsel Dan Jones as a partner on its fintech team in London; Goodwin hired capital markets counsel Romain Querenet de Breville in Paris; management-side worklaw firm Littler said Danish attorney Bo Enevold Uhrenfeldt joined the firm as partner and head of its new Copenhagen office, which goes by the name Littler | enevold. He arrives from Skau Reipurth. (Littler)
• The Job Creators Network Foundation, a small business advocacy group, said it hired attorney Karen Harned to among other things fight President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan; Phoenix-based Western Alliance Bank said its general counsel Jessica Jarvi will become chief legal officer when current CLO Randall Theisen becomes head of corporate affairs early next year. (Businesswire)

Technology

• Jones Day is starting a fintech accelerator program beginning with a three-day event in October in the firm’s San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices. (The Recorder)