Wake Up Call: Freshfields Vies for Place in ‘Wall Street Elite’

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

• Freshfields has made inroads in New York by hiring almost 50 top partners over the last five years from firms like Cravath, Skadden, and Davis Polk, to build a range of practice groups. As a result, the UK-founded “Magic Circle” law firm is now “challenging for a place among the Wall Street elite” as its costly hiring spree “shows signs of paying off.” (Financial Times)
• Kirkland & Ellis and Cravath, Swaine & Moore played key roles in alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital Inc.'s acquisition of Atalaya Capital Management, an alternative credit manager, for $450 million. Kirkland acted as legal adviser to Blue Owl, while Cravath served in the same role for Atalaya. (PR Newswire)
• FedEx General Counsel Mark Allen is set to retire in September, after 42 years with the company. In those four-plus decades, the company has grown from 76 aircraft and revenues of $803 million, to a behemoth that boasts 700 aircraft, $90 billion in revenues and 529,000 employees. (Law.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Julissa Reynoso rejoins Winston & Strawn as a partner in its litigation department in New York.
• André Duminy has joined Kirkland & Ellis as a partner in the technology and IP transactions practice in London. He joins from Clifford Chance.
• Aryeh Kaplan has joined Sidley Austin as a commercial litigation and disputes practice partner in Miami. He joins from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
• Alexandra Chauvin has joined White & Case as a secondaries partner in London. She joins from Ropes & Gray.
• Parisa Clovis joins A&O Shearman as a global debt finance practice partner in London. She joins from Kirkland & Ellis.
• Jerry Ku joins Davis Wright Tremaine as a corporate partner in San Francisco.
• Christopher Adams has joined McCarter & English as a partner on the white collar litigation team in Newark, New Jersey. He joins from Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis.
• Collin Brodrick has joined Fisher Phillips as a litigation partner in Dallas.
• Rebecca Bush has joined Amundsen Davis as a partner and chair of the firm’s new employee benefits, executive compensation and tax service group in Milwaukee.
• Morrison Cohen attorney Hunter Book has been promoted to senior counsel with the firm’s tax practice