Wake Up Call: First Black Florida Supreme Court Justice Dies

In today’s column, Fox Rothschild added an Atlanta-based trusts and estates boutique and its four veteran tax and wealth lawyers; Katten Muchin’s 2020 revenues fell 3.5% to $646.6 million but its profits per equity partner rose on cost cuts and a shrinking partnership; Chevron is still fighting a $9.5 billion verdict in an Ecuador pollution lawsuit decided 28 years ago.

• Leading off, former Akerman partner Joseph W. Hatchett, who in 1975 became the first African American to serve on the Florida Supreme Court, died April 30 in Tallahassee at age 88, according to reports. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter named Hatchett to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, making him the first African American to serve in a federal circuit that covered the Deep South at the time. Hatchett joined Akerman after retiring from the court in 1999. (Tampa Bay Times) (FloridaSupremeCourt.org)
• Philadelphia-based Fox Rothschild said it combined with Atlanta trust and estates boutique Abrams Davis Mason Long, acquiring four veteran attorneys for its national tax and wealth-planning practice. Fox opened its Atlanta office in 2018. (FoxRothschild.com)
• Katten Muchin Rosenman’s 2020 gross revenues fell to $646.6 million, down 3.5% from 2019, as its real estate and litigation practices slowed in the early months of the pandemic. Profits per equity partner gained 2.8% to $1.906 million, as the firm’s equity partnership shrank 4.3%, to 125, and the firm cut costs, including by making layoffs. Katten said its finance and insolvency and restructuring practices did well, as did its health care and private wealth practices. (American Lawyer)
• The Biden administration’s push to get the adult U.S. population vaccinated is raising many legal issues for employers and their law firms. (National Law Journal)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Chevron is still fighting a $9.5 billion verdict in an Ecuador pollution lawsuit decided 28 years ago, although U.S. courts ruled the award fraudulent. Meanwhile, the U.S. environmental lawyer who was instrumental in winning the ruling in Ecuador is under house arrest in New York. (WSJ)
• Florida-based civil rights lawyer Ben Crump has represented families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, whose killings by police or vigilantes spurred protests. The Reverend Al Sharpton calls Crump “Black America’s attorney general.” (Minneapolis StarTribune)
• London-based litigation funder Woodsford said it recently became the first foreign firm authorized to fund class actions in Australia. (WoodsfordLitigationFunding.com)
• Wilson Elser said it advised the National Cannabis Risk Management Association on the rollout of a cannabis insurance captive, which the firm called the first of its kind. (WilsonElser.com)

Laterals, Moves, Promotions

• Kramer Levin poached a five-lawyer team from Eversheds Sutherland to expand its Paris office, adding private equity partner Sébastien Pontillo and banking and finance partner Sophie Perus, plus counsel Blandine Gény, and two associates, with two more associates to come later. Kramer Levin said its Paris office now has 55 lawyers, including 21 partners; K&L Gates grabbed tax lawyer Roberta Chang as a partner in its Shanghai office from Hogan Lovells, where she was a partner and head of its China tax group. (KLGates.com)
• McGuireWoods brought in former Education Department deputy general counsel Farnaz Thompson as an education partner in Washington in its labor & employment practice; DLA Piper announced it promoted 44 lawyers to partner (14 women), including 17 in the United States. (DLAPartner.com)