Wake Up Call: Rocket Lawyer Gets $223 Million Investment

In today’s column, Paul Hastings had 14.2% profit growth in a pandemic year by focusing on top clients; Hogan Lovells signed a lease for a new Silicon Valley office; a former Morrison & Foerster office operations manager pleaded guilty to hundreds of thousands of dollars of fraud with the law firm’s credit card.

• San Francisco-based legal tech startup Rocket Lawyer raised $223 million from an investor group led by Vista Credit Partners, a branch of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. Rocket’s founder and CEO Charley Moore said “The pandemic amplified and accelerated demand for our cloud-based digital legal solutions.” Rocket, which said it plans to use the money to fund international expansion and make acquisitions, got advice on the investment from Goodwin Procter and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, while VCP was represented by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. (GlobeNewswire.com)
• Paul Hastings posted 3.2% revenue growth to $1.31 billion in 2020 and a 14.2% increase in profits per equity partner to $3.9 million, as the Los Angeles-based firm focused on top clients’ most important matters during the pandemic. The firm made several prominent lateral partner hires during the year; Hunton Andrews Kurth’s gross revenues shrank 1.7% in Covid-hit 2020 to $743.1 million, but its profits per equity partner expanded 13.8% to $1.346 million. The firm’s strongest sources of work were in finance, bankruptcy, labor and employment, and insurance recovery. (American Lawyer)
• Holland & Knight, mulling a merger with Thompson & Knight, matched the Davis Polk scale for special associate bonuses, up to $64,000 depending on year of seniority. Associates have to bill at least 1,900 hours to get the full amount; Taft Law, a 625-lawyer firm formed in 2020 out of a merger of midwestern firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister and Minneapolis-based Briggs and Morgan, said it will increase salaries for all associates. (Above the Law)
• With ESG matters increasingly important for corporations and investors around the world, global law firm DLA Piper said its hooking up with a cloud-based software analytics platform, Datamaran, which among things provides tools for monitoring environment, social, and governance-related risks. DLA said Datamaran’s tools will allow integrating ESG due diligence into corporate, financing and transactional activities. (DLAPiper.com)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Hogan Lovells said it has expansion plans in Northern California and has signed an 11-year lease for a new office in the growing Silicon Valley-hub of Redwood City. Hogan Lovells said it plans to move into the new space from its existing Menlo Park office in the first half of 2022. (HoganLovells.com)
• Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, with $12.53 million, was the top firm for first-quarter D.C. lobbying revenue in 2021, squeaking past Akin Gump’s $12.52 million, according to a report. (Politico)
• A former Morrison & Foerster office operations manager pleaded guilty in Washington federal court to felony mail fraud for using a law firm credit card to buy at least $425,000 in personal merchandise. (National Law Journal)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Norton Rose Fulbright poached a three-lawyer real estate finance team from Loeb & Loeb in Los Angeles including partner David Barksdale, senior counsel Kevin Garland, and an associate; also in L.A., Hinshaw & Culbertson got veteran real estate lawyer Gary Ogden as a partner; and Clark Hill hired litigator Brian Hom as a member. He arrives from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Manatt added two venture capital and emerging companies partners: Thomas Michael in Los Angeles from Dentons and Rustin Brown from Kirkland & Ellis in Washington. (Manatt)
• Katten Muchin hired capital markets partner Vlad Bulkin in Washington. He arrives from Eversheds Sutherland and focuses on business development companies and closed-end funds; Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough added life-sciences regulatory attorney Christopher Hanson as a partner in Washington. He arrives from Covington & Burling. Nelson Mullins added corporate M&A partner Will Smoak in Charlotte, N.C. He arrives from Moore & Van Allen. (NelsonMullins.com)
• Dallas-based hospital chain Tenet Healthcare Corp. said its executive vice president and general counsel, Audrey Andrews, plans to retire at the end of 2021, after which its chief administrative officer, Tom Arnst, will add GC to his list of roles; Michael Best Strategies added former dairy industry trade consortium CEO and dairy association top lawyer Steven Rowe as a senior adviser on its government relations team in Salt Lake City, Utah. (MichaelBestStrategies.com)