Wake Up Call: Lawyer Pleads Guilty in Attempted Embassy Bombing

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

• Florida lawyer Christopher Rodriguez pleaded guilty to placing a bag of explosives near the Chinese Embassy in Washington and trying to detonate it with a rifle. Rodriguez previously set off explosives in 2022 that caused damage to a statue of Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong in Texas. (New York Times)
• Usha Vance, a former trial lawyer at Munger Tolles & Olson and wife of vice presidential candidate JD Vance, said on “Fox & Friends” that her husband’s comment on “childless cat ladies” was a “quip.” (Fox News)
• Rita Glavin, a former partner at Vinson & Elkins, is representing former Michigan State University head football coach Mel Tucker in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed against the school. (USA Today)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Laura Vartain Horn joined Kirkland & Ellis as a partner in the intellectual property practice group. She joins from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
• Kaitlin Betancourt joined Goodwin as a partner in the data, privacy, and cybersecurity practice in New York. She joins from Prudential Financial.
• Xander Flynn-Tabloff joined Goodwin as a partner in the employment practice in Boston.
• Mir Masud-Elias joined Arnold & Porter’s tax and tax-exempt practices as counsel, resident in Washington.
• Waleed Nassar joined Pillsbury in the litigation practice as a partner in Washington. He joins from Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss.
• Sandra Newman and Rebecca Eberhardt joined Venable as its first private wealth planning practitioners in its Chicago office.
• Joe Walsh joined Duane Morris as a trial partner in its Houston and New York offices. He joins from Exxon Mobil Corporation, where he was assistant general counsel.
• Jon McNutt joined Husch Blackwell as a labor and employment partner in the healthcare, life sciences, and education industry group in Los Angeles.
• Richard Scharlat joined Clark Hill as a member of the labor and employment practice in New York.
• Nneoma Maduike joined Holland & Knight as a financial services partner in New York. She joins from Otterbourg.
• Ernest Badway joined Thompson Hine as a business litigation partner in New York. He joins from Fox Rothschild.
• David Cambria joined Epiq as managing director of its legal business advisory practice.