Wake Up Call: Cooley’s Deal Work Aids Revenue Growth to $1.33 Billion

In today’s column, Seyfarth Shaw hired a “powerhouse” group of litigation partners from Arnold & Porter in New York; Baker McKenzie expanded its California deal team to 23 lawyers; and Brown Rudnick’s London office grabbed three tech-focused corporate partners from Baker Botts.

• Leading off, Cooley in 2019 capped 10 straight years of growth with 8.4% expansion of its gross revenue, to $1.33 billion, with its average profits per equity partner gaining 6.4%, to reach $2.54 million. The firm said its gross revenues have swelled 157% since 2010. Cooley CEO Joe Conroy called 2019 an “amazing” year for deal work,” which accounts for over half of its work, and a big year for recruiting talent. (The Recorder)

• ALM posted an updated collection of this year’s early results from firms. (American Lawyer)

• U.K. financial regulators are investigating Barclays chief executive Jes Staley over his links to the late child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. (Bloomberg News) Meanwhile, a Troutman Sanders lawyer for Epstein’s estate says the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands is blocking settlements with Epstein’s victims. (New York Post)

• Seyfarth Shaw hired a “powerhouse group” of three litigation partners in New York, getting Vincent Sama, Catherine Schumacher, and Daphne Morduchowitz from Arnold & Porter. Sama will serve as co-chair of Seyfarth’s national commercial and securities litigation practice. (Seyfarth Shaw)

• Brown Rudnick’s London office added three tech-focused transactions and capital markets partners from Baker Botts, led by Neil Foster, who joins as European head of technology and global co-chair of Brown Rudnick’s technology group. Tim Davison and Sarah Melaney made the move with him. (BrownRudnick.com)

• Baker McKenzie’s mergers & acquisitions practice now has 23 lawyers in northern California, after some recent big hires. It got Gibson Dunn partner Lisa Fontenot and Wilson Sonsini partner Derek Liu in California, months after getting Skadden Arp’s Leif King as its M&A/corporate practice leader for California. (American Lawyer)

• Detroit-based Clark Hill, expanded through three recent mergers, said executive committee member John Hensien, its automotive and manufacturing practice co-chair, will become its new chief executive officer on Jan. 1, 2021. He will take over from current CEO John J. Hern, Jr. as part of year-long leadership transition. (ClarkHill.com)

• “Cloud-based” firm FisherBroyles, with about 250 attorneys, has opened its first foreign office, in London, and has plans for branches in Singapore and Milan. (American Lawyer)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the federal judge who will sentence Trump ally Roger Stone, is an Obama appointee who’s drawn scorn from the president for her handling of the criminal case against Paul Manafort and a civil lawsuit involving Hillary Clinton. (BN)

• The White House resubmitted two stalled agency nominations to the Senate. It renominated FERC general counsel James Danly to become a commissioner on the energy regulator. The White House also re-nominated Catherine Bird, an attorney with the Department of Health and Human Services who’s been involved with the department’s labor negotiations, to become general counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority for a term of five years. (BN via BLAW) (BLAW)

• The Multistate Tax Commission picked Nancy Prosser, general counsel for the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, to be its new general counsel, effective June 1. Helen Hecht, the current GC, will take on a new role as senior counsel focused on projects and initiatives to improve tax uniformity among states. (Bloomberg Tax)

• As crowd-funding company Kickstarter deals with a union campaign among its employees, it is working with Duane Morris, a Philadelphia-based firm that advertises that its employment law management and labor relations practice includes “maintaining a union-free workplace.” (Vice)

Deals

• Willkie Farr & Gallagher represented Benefit Street Partners, an alternative asset management firm, on its acquisition of certain real estate related assets from Broadstone Real Estate. (BenefitStreetPartners.com)

Pro Bono

• Morrison & Foerster represented two men who got a nearly $1.5 million settlement from San Diego over their wrongful arrest lawsuit. (L.A. Times) (MoFo.com) One of the arrested men was California rapper, Brandon “Tiny Doo” Duncan. (AllHipHop.com)

Laterals, Moves

• Carlton Fields added real estate and commercial finance lawyer Paul E. Kisselburg as of counsel in Washington. He arrives from Fox Rothschild, rejoining a team of real estate attorneys who left that firm for Carlton Fields in December 2018. (CarltonFields.com)

• Dechert added private fund formation lawyer Tricia Lee as partner in Texas in its global private funds practice. According to her LinkedIn profile, she arrives from K&L Gates. (Dechert.com)

• Mintz grabbed Orrick capital markets attorney Andrew Thorpe, a former lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission, as a member in its corporate group, based in San Francisco. (Mintz.com)

• Alston & Bird got back former Georgia federal prosecutor Joseph Burby as a litigation, white collar and investigations partner in Atlanta. Burby, who was an associate at the firm earlier in his career, joins from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, where he was a partner for 13 years. (Alston.com)

• Bailey Glasser said it is opening an office in Oakland, its first in California, to be led by litigator Arthur Bryant, a former chair of legal advocacy nonprofit Public Justice, and trial and litigation partner Todd Walburg. (BaileyGlasser.com)

Legal Actions, Decisions

• Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes and her Williams & Connolly lawyers got criminal charges against her thinned but failed in a long-shot attempt to get the entire indictment against her thrown out. (BN via BLAW)

• Wells Fargo & Co. said it will stop requiring arbitration when an employee files a sexual harassment complaint. It’s the first big U.S. bank to announce an end to the practice. (BN via BLAW)

Regulators and Enforcement

• The U.S. soon will announce new regulations related to crytocurrency and digital payment systems, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. (BN via BLAW)

• New Treasury rules on national security reviews of foreign investments in the U.S. take effect today. (BLAW)

Technology

• Many large corporate legal departments have been slow to adopt artificial intelligence-powered tools for contract analysis, a new study says. (Corporate Counsel)

Legal Education

• The “interest never sleeps” on law school debt, and “you cannot escape that math,” says Vinson & Elkins associate Bryan Gividen in a Twitter thread he started about graduate education debt, which got a lot of responses. (Twitter)