Wake Up Call: Reynen Court Plans Stock Offering Aimed at Lawyers

In today’s column, Holland & Knight is in merger talks with a Tennessee firm; O’Melveny plans to move its Manhattan office; a Gartner survey finds general counsel think they’re falling short on their director management work.

• Leading off, Reynen Court Inc., a legal technology platform backed by 20 law firms as well as by 22 corporate legal departments, said it’s launching an online stock offering aimed at lawyers and “legal technology enthusiasts.” The company, founded by former Cravath securities attorney Andrew Klein, said the offering is aimed at supporting its mission to help set technology standards that can cut costs for both the buyers and sellers of technology. (Invest.reynencourt.com) (PR Newswire) Klein told Business Insider he’s looking to raise $5 million from wealthy lawyers and investors in his latest fund raise. (Business Insider)
• Holland & Knight, after its merger last year with Texas firm Thompson & Knight, is in talks to merge with Nashville firm Waller Lansden. (American Lawyer)
• O’Melveny & Myers is moving out of its 7 Times Square New York headquarters in either late 2024 or early 2025. The Los Angeles-based firm signed a 15-year lease for 142,000 square feet in Paramount Group’s 1301 Sixth Avenue in Midtown, but the move will reduce the company’s footprint in Manhattan. (Real Deal) Haynes and Boone said it moved its Mexico City office to a state-of-the-art office tower located on the Paseo de la Reforma. (HaynesBoone.com)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• General counsel are falling short on their director management obligations, such as for their companies’ environmental, social and governance efforts, according to survey by Gartner, Inc. (Gartner)
• MLT Aikins, Western Canada’s biggest law firm with about 270 lawyers, is merging with eight-lawyer Vancouver commercial litigation boutique firm Hakemi Ridgedale, the firms announced. (Law.com International)
• A Florida Bar committee is considering new proposals to improve public access to legal services. The Florida Supreme Court has already ruled out ambitious proposals including testing non-lawyer ownership of law firms and fee splitting. (FloridaBar.org)
• Perkins Coie announced nine organizations that it said received grants in the firm’s 2022 Racial Equality Grant Program, which awarded a total of $500,000. (Perkins Coie)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Polsinelli grabbed three attorneys from Armstrong Teasdale for its litigation and corporate teams. They include cybersecurity and data privacy litigation shareholder Romaine Marshall and commercial litigation shareholder Jose Abarca in Salt Lake City and labor and employment shareholder Jordan Lee in Los Angeles. Polsinelli also added corporate counsel Robert Lamb in Salt Lake. (Polsinelli)
• Squire Patton Boggs brought in private equity lawyer Arnaud Lafarge as a partner in its corporate practice in Paris. He joins from Lamy Lexel with two associates; Cozen O’Connor hired veteran Canadian tax lawyer Kevin Zimka as a shareholder in its Vancouver office. He arrives from Blake, Cassels & Graydon; Pillsbury hired litigator Adam Goldberg as a partner in San Francisco He was recently a Hong Kong-based partner for Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Womble Bond Dickinson recruited Wells Fargo senior vice president and managing counsel Michael Choy, former attorney at Winston & Strawn and Alston & Bird, as a partner in its capital markets group in Raleigh, North Carolina; Blank Rome hired two registered patent agents, in Philadelphia and Houston; Finnegan added Reginald Lucas, former senior intellectual property litigator at the US International Trade Commission, as of counsel in Washington. (Finnegan)
• Lighthouse Guild named former White & Case attorney Nicole Hart, an in-house veteran advising on trusts and estates and nonprofit law, as general counsel and chief compliance officer. (Invision); Oregon based Dutch Bros Coffee hired longtime restaurant industry in-house leader Victoria Tullett as chief legal officer. (QSR Magazine) Another legal department leader is leaving Warner Bros. Discovery in the wake of the two companies’ merger earlier this year. Marc Graboff, Discovery president for global business & legal affairs and content supply chain is leaving at year’s end. (Variety)

Technology

• Legal departments are finding new benefits to technology beyond efficiency. (Financial Times)