Wake Up Call: MoFo Snags Greenberg Miami Team for New Latin America Desk

• San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster announced a new multi-practice Latin America desk under its corporate group, for which it poached a team of nine Miami-based Latin America lawyers from Greenberg Traurig, including four partners. Former Greenberg Miami corporate practice co-chair Randy Bullard will co-lead the new desk, with white collar partner Ruti Smithline, who’s been at MoFo since 2005. The team arriving with Bullard from Greenberg, which also includes partners Alexandra Aguirre, Enrique Conde, and Juan Delgado, will be part of the firm’s New York office, but still work out of Miami and in Latin America. It mainly represents multinational companies in cross-border M&A transactions, joint ventures, and financial transactions, MoFo said. (MoFo.com)

• As an increasing number of corporate clients push for cost certainty, many of the biggest U.S. law firms, via their web sites, are talking up the use of alternative fee arrangements. But new analysis shows few of those firms actually use AFAs, and most are still sticking with the good ol’ billable hour despite the friction with legal departments looking for savings. (BLAW via BLB)

• Crowell & Moring’s London office added its sixth new partner in as many months, getting Squire Patton Boggs’s U.K head of litigation, Laurence Winston, to co-lead Crowell’s international dispute resolution group. Winston is the latest Squire Patton Boggs partner to rejoin Robert Weekes, who ran his old firm’s London office for 10 years, and, since January, is managing Crowell’s London office. (BLAW via BLB)

• McGlinchey Stafford said it opened a Boston office Monday and hired four former LeClair Ryan litigators. The Boston office, to serve clients in the region’s financial, insurance, and commercial markets, was opened by Le Clair’s former consumer financial services litigation leader, Shanna Boughton, and veteran trial attorney Patrick Voke, who join as members. Financial services litigator Mikelle Bliss joins as of counsel in New York, while financial services and worklaw attorney Helen Mosothoane joins as associate in Dallas. (McGlinchey.com)

• Stoel Rives hired American Petroleum Institute top lawyer Stacy Linden as a partner in its Washington office. Linden was most recently vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary at the API. According to Linden’s LinkedIn, earlier in her career she spent time as an associate at Jones Day, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and Hogan & Hartson, a precursor of Hogan Lovells. (Stoel.com)

• Seventy-five LGBT rights and allied groups said Trump federal district court nominee Matthew Kacsmaryk is an “anti-LGBT activist.” The Senate confirmed him to a lifetime seat anyway. (BLAW)

• Speaking of LeClair Ryan, the Richmond-based firm has lost a lot of lawyers recently. Earlier this week it lost five lawyers, including four partners, to Duane Morris. (BLB)

• Foley & Lardner appointed New York-based partner Jonathan L. Israel, a former assistant general counsel at the National Basketball Association, as the new co-chair of its sports & entertainment group, which he’ll lead with business and M&A partner Kevin Schultz. Israel, a worklaw litigator, joined the firm in 2013. (Foley.com)

• Juan Picon, co-leader of Latham & Watkins’ Latin America practice and a former global co-chair of DLA Piper, has died following a battle with lymphoma. (BLAW via BLB)

Lawyers, Law Firms, Deals

• The wife of a former managing partner of Burr & Forman’s Atlanta office, Gary Wayne Farris, was charged with his 2018 murder, authorities said. (Daily Report)

• Willkie Farr & Gallagher is advising private equity firm Vintage Capital Management LLC in its move seeking new board leadership of Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Inc. (Nation’s Restaurant News) (StreetInsider.com)

• DLA Piper client Petrobas America Inc. got a New Orleans federal appeals court judge to reinstate its seven-year-old lawsuit seeking $160 million against Spanish chain manufacturer Vicinay Cadenas, S.A., over an allegedly defective wellhead tether chain that failed in the Gulf of Mexico in 2011. Vicinay is advised by Norton Rose Fulbright. (USAcourts.gov)

• Weil, Gotshal & Manges client Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC invested $115 million in DLA Piper client Real Capital Analytics Inc., a New York-based company that provides commercial real estate data and analytics. (PEHub.com) (DLAPiper.com)
• Chicago-headquartered Seyfarth Shaw published a handbook aimed at helping companies that employ workers in Massachusetts to navigate that state’s wage and hour laws, which the firm calls some of the toughest in the country. (Seyfarth.com)

Laterals, Moves, Promotions

• Carlton Fields added veteran insurance and commercial litigator Kenneth Cesta, who will work out of its New York and New Jersey offices. Cesta, who is certified in eDiscovery, was most recently at Hoagland Longo Moran Dunst & Doukas, a large New Jersey firm. (CarltonFields.com)

• Eisner grabbed two Greenspoon Marder lawyers to expand its entertainment practice. Kerry Smith, who was most recently head of Greenspoon’s television and film group in New York, joins Eisner as a partner and will work from its year-old New York office and in L.A. Darien Schwartz joins Eisner as an associate in New York. (Eisner.com)

Regulators and Enforcement

• New York state lawmakers passed legislation that will expand harassment and discrimination protections for employees, according to the National Employment Lawyers Association of New York, which said it helped draft the bill. (Medium.com)

Technology

• The City of London Corporation has started a “sounding board” to help increase adoption of legal technology in the financial and professional services sector, including law firms. (Artificial Lawyer)