Wake Up Call: Cooley Grabs Latham Capital Markets Partner in London

In today’s column, Mayer Brown poached a prominent Paul Hastings white collar partner in D.C., while Boies lost its third partner this week; European reports say several unidentified U.S. law firms were hit by a ransomware attack; and Reed Smith launched a free, mobile eDiscovery app.

• Leading off, Cooley expanded its capital markets practice in London, grabbing partner David Boles away from Latham & Watkins, where he’d been 14 years, most recently as a partner. Boles re-joins capital markets partner Claire Keast-Butler, who arrived from Latham in 2019. Boles has advised on initial public offerings and follow-on offerings on most major European exchanges. He’s also among a small number of U.S.-qualified securities lawyers in London advising foreign private issuers listing and raising capital on Nasdaq and the NYSE, Cooley said. (Cooley.com)

• After losing a couple of partners to Jenner & Block earlier this week, Boies Schiller Flexner lost another partner, this time to Cooley. Cooley said it hired trial and appellate litigator Kathleen Hartnett as a partner in San Francisco. A former Obama White House associate counsel and U.S. Supreme Court clerk, Hartnett was co-administrative partner of Boies’ San Francisco office. Previously, she served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s civil division, overseeing the Federal Programs Branch, which represents the federal government in high-profile civil litigation. (Cooley.com)

• Mayer Brown called its hire of former Paul Hastings white collar lawyer Michael Levy a “major coup” as it expands its regulatory, enforcement, and investigations capabilities. Levy joins Mayer Brown in Washington as a partner. He has advised corporate and individual clients in investigations of Enron, the financial and accounting scandals of Fannie Mae, the NFL’s “Spygate” scandal, and “the use by the former secretary of state of a nongovernmental private email server,” among other cases, the firm said. (MayerBrown.com)

• European reports say five unidentified U.S. law firms and French industrial giant Bouygues Construction were hit by a cyber attack by a group known as Maze, which is demanding close to $1 million ransoms from each firm. (Cointelegraph.com) (Infosecurity-magazine.com) (Agence France Presse via Frenchweb.fr) Bouygues acknowledged the attack in a statement. (Bouygues.com)

• The National Security Agency’s top lawyer since 2015, Glenn Gerstell, left his job Jan. 31, and has taken a job as senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. (Corporate Counsel) (Cyberscoop.com)

• Revenue growth at U.S. law firms is expected to slow in 2020, according to a report released by Wells Fargo Private Bank. (BLAW)

• London-listed litigation finance firm Burford Capital, whose stock took a hit last year from short-selling investment research firm Muddy Waters, said it expects its 2019 profits to be down from their 2018 level. But it said it had a record $1.6 billion in commitments to new investments. (American Lawyer)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Mintz hired Crowell & Moring antitrust partner Joseph Miller as co-chair of its antitrust practice and a member of its health law practice. He’s a former assistant chief in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, FTC attorney, top lawyer at a health insurer trade association, and at Crowell he was on the antitrust group steering committee. (Mintz.com)

• McDermott Will & Emory’s new health care industry 2020 outlook says digital health, appetite for innovation, and regulatory forces in Washington are among key issues it expects to shape industry M&A, partnerships, and strategic alliances this year. (Digital.MWE.com)

• St. Louis-based health care company Centene Corp. said that senior vice president Chris Koster, a former Missouri attorney general and state senator, will take over as its general counsel Feb. 19. The company, which recently closed its $17 billion acquisition of WellCare Health Plans Inc., said its outgoing GC, Keith Williamson, is moving to a new role as president of the Centene Charitable Foundation. (PRNewswire via APNews)

• King & Spalding poached a four-partner trial team from Orrick specializing in pharmaceutical and health care mass tort defense. The new partners, joining in New York, are Morton Dubin, John Ewald, Kristen Fournier, and Kathy O’Connor. (KSLaw.com)

• Akin Gump healthcare partner Stephanie Webster joined Ropes & Gray as a partner in Washington. She won a landmark Supreme Court case requiring the government to go through a notice-and-comment period before making substantive changes to federal health programs. (BLAW)

• French intellectual property firm Plasseraud IP said it launched an office in Munich, where the European Patent Office has its headquarters. (Plass.com)

• Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, the new 1,300-lawyer firm created out of the merger of Minneapolis-based Faegre Baker Daniels and Philadelphia-based Drinker Biddle & Reath, officially launched effective Feb. 1. (FaegreDrinker.com)

Deals

• Private equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners, advised by Willkie Farr & Gallagher, acquired a majority stake in independent insurance intermediary Global Risk Partners, advised by Slaughter and May. Proskauer Rose also advised in the transaction. (Reinsurance News) (Searchlight)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Management-side worklaw firm Littler hired Akin Gump partner Lawrence D. Levien as a shareholder in Washington. Levien previously served in the appellate court and litigation section of the National Labor Relations Board. (Littler)

• Goodwin Procter said ERISA & executive compensation lawyer Crescent Moran Chasteen joined as a partner in Boston. According to her Linkedin, Chasteen has been at several big law firms previously, and was most recently a partner at Nutter McClennen & Fish. (GoodwinLaw.com)

• AAR, which provides aviation services to airlines and governments, hired in-house leader Jessica A. Garascia as general counsel. She joins most recently from USG Corporation where she served as deputy GC responsible for overseeing M&A activity, compliance, corporate governance, securities law and NYSE compliance. She started her legal career at Jenner & Block. (AARCorp.com)

• Phoenix-based Magellan Health, Inc. appointed David Haddock as general counsel and secretary. Haddock was previously general counsel and corporate secretary at Quality Care Properties, Inc., a Maryland-based real estate investment trust. (Biospace.com) (Bloomberg.com)

Promotions

• Foley & Lardner announced 18 lawyers (10 women) were promoted to partner, effective Feb. 1. (Foley.com)

• Fish & Richardson promoted 14 attorneys (four women) to principal effective Jan. 1, 2020, in its intellectual property litigation and patent groups. (Yahoo! Finance)

Legal Actions, Bankruptcies, Decisions

• Evonik Industries AG completed its $640 million acquisition of PeroxyChem LLC, a U.S. chemical company, after a U.S. judge rejected a Federal Trade Commission attempt to block the transaction on antitrust grounds. Dechert represented PeroxyChem. (Dechert.com)

Technology

• Reed Smith launched a free mobile eDiscovery app developed in-house by the firm’s records & eDiscovery practice group in collaboration with the firm’s legal tech subsidiary, Gravity Stack. (ReedSmith.com)

• There’s more on the news that founders of online legal marketplace UpCounsel decided to shut down. A report says they decided to call it quits after a litigation opponent became a “significant shareholder.” (ABAJournal.com) Meanwhile, another report cites an UpCounsel investor who says the site will soon be working with Linkedin, but the litigation opponent denied that claim. (ArtificialLawyer.com)