Wake Up Call: Corporate Legal Chiefs Earning ‘Hefty’ Parachutes

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

• General counsel and other corporate legal leaders are being given “huge payouts” to help ensure “soft landings” if they lose their jobs after their company is sold. One example: US Steel GC Duane Holloway stands to cash in for more than $16 million if the planned $14 billion deal to sell the company to Japan’s Nippon Steel closes. (Law.com)
• Missouri law firm Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch has opened a new office in Kansas City and added four new members to the firm in St. Louis. The firm is known for its work on a case that won a $790 million settlement in part from the NFL over the former St. Louis Rams’ relocation to Los Angeles. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Locke Lord public development finance lawyer Drew Slone has, it’s fair to say, a pretty rare hobby for a Big Law partner: She trains for “feats of strength” like pulling 18,000-pound trucks across parking lots. The strongwoman competitor “is up at 4 a.m. every day slinging weights and later in the day drags sleds and throws sandbags in a gym she built in her garage.” (D Magazine)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Stephen Wortley has joined DLA Piper as a partner in the cross-border capital markets practice in Vancouver and New York.
• Construction attorney Marion T. Hack has joined Cozen O’Connor as a shareholder in Los Angeles. She joins from Troutman Pepper.
• Alice Morical has joined Faegre Drinker as a partner in the business litigation group in Indianapolis.
• Alan Bao has joined White & Case as a partner with the global mergers and acquisitions practice in Beijing. He joins from O’Melveny.