Wake Up Call: Manchester City Hires Lawyer to Fight Charges

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

• Manchester City Football Club have hired elite UK lawyer David Pannick to defend the Premier League champions against league charges that it committed over 100 financial rule violations since 2009. Pannick, who defended former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the so-called Partygate scandal, could earn as much as 400,000 pounds ($484,000) per week defending the club. That’s comparable to what the team pays its top star player, a report said. (The Lawyer)
• Fried Frank said its team led by partners Kenneth I. Rosh and Matthew W. Howard advised Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on its West Street Global Growth Partners fund, which closed with $5.2 billion in total commitments. Goldman called the fund “one of the largest first-time growth equity funds in history.” (GSAM.com)
• Former Twitter Inc. chief privacy officer, vice president and deputy general counsel Damien Kieran announced on LinkedIn that he took a job as general counsel at French photo-sharing app BeReal. Kieran was among a group of Twitter in-house lawyers that left the company after Elon Musk took over as CEO. (LinkedIn.com)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Kansas City, Missouri-based Polsinelli PC signed a 10-year lease renewal and expansion on its offices at 600 Third Avenue in Manhattan, adding a fourth floor and about 13,100 square feet to its footprint. (The Real Deal)
• Despite decades of trying to improve their use of space, the biggest US law firms still have a long way to go, according to a report. (American Lawyer)
• Sullivan & Worcester launched a permitting and land-use practice led by Boston-based partner Jennifer Schultz. (SullivanLaw.com)
• The American Bar Association passed a resolution opposing any legislation that would require lawyers to flag potentially illicit financial activity by their clients. (WSJ)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• White & Case grabbed trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor Joel Cohen, co-chair of Gibson Dunn’s white collar defense and investigations group, as a partner in New York. Cohen was the prosecutor of a case that was the focus of “The Wolf of Wall Street” film by Martin Scorsese. (WhiteCase.com)
• Dentons re-hired litigator and government investigations attorney Melissa Gomez Nelson as partner in Washington. A partner at the firm earlier in her career, she returns from government and military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, where she was in-house. (Dentons.com)
• Reed Smith snagged Norton Rose Fulbright securities and M&A attorney William Davis as partner in Houston, Texas, in its global corporate group. He earlier spent 17 years as partner at Baker McKenzie. Reed Smith also hired two life sciences lawyers as counsel: Sarah Thompson Schick from Hogan Lovells in Houston and Mattias Luukkonen from DLA Piper in Orange County, California. (ReedSmith.com)
• Baker McKenzie hired banking and finance lawyer Anthony Kay as partner in London. He arrives from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. (BakerMcKenzie.com)
• McCarter & English picked up Cantor Colburn intellectual property lawyer Dave Christensen as partner in Hartford, Connecticut. (McCarter.com)
• Cole Schotz PC brought in corporate bankruptcy attorney Stacy Newman as a member in Delaware. She arrives after 14 years at Ashby & Geddes. (ColeSchotz.com)
• Atlanta-based energy group Southern Company Services said former Jones Day partner Sterling Spainhour Jr will become its executive vice president, chief legal officer, and chief compliance officer on March 31, taking over from former McGuireWoods partner James (Jim) Kerr. Kerr is moving up to chairman, CEO and president of Southern Company Gas. Spainhour is currently senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Georgia Power Company, a Southern subsidiary. (SouthernCompany.com)
• Alto Neuroscience hired veteran chief legal officer Erin R. McQuade from another biotech company, Levo Therapeutics. McQuade, a Big Law veteran, joins Alto Neuroscience as general counsel and chief administrative officer. (Businesswire)

Promotions

• Finn Dixon & Herling promoted three attorneys to partner and three to counsel effective Jan. 1. (FDH.com)