Wake Up Call: Six Firms Lead Broadcom’s $61 Billion VMware Buy

In this column, legal tech company DocuSign hired a big tech veteran to fill its recently vacated CLO role; California’s top court extended a pandemic inspired measure that lets recent law grads get provisional licenses; O’Melveny tripled its space in Dallas.

• Leading off, Wachtell Lipton and O’Melveny & Myers are counseling computer chipmaker Broadcom Inc. on its agreement to buy cloud-computing company VMware Inc. for about $61 billion. Cleary Gottlieb is advising Broadcom on regulatory aspects of the deal, which is the biggest ever for a semiconductor maker. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is counseling Michael Dell-backed VMware, according to a statement. (Bloomberg News via BLAW)
• Simpson Thacher & Bartlett said it’s representing private equity firm Silver Lake, VMware’s second largest shareholder, while Debevoise & Plimpton said it’s advising JP Morgan Chase in its role as financial adviser to VMWare. (Debevoise.com)
• The California Supreme Court extended until the end of the year a program that lets recent law graduates practice law with a provisional license while they complete steps need to get fully licensed. The court first authorized the program in 2020 as the pandemic disrupted bar exam schedules. (The Recorder)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Federal prosecutors are using Perkins Coie billing records to prove their criminal case against a former partner at the firm, Michael Sussmann. The prosecutors accuse Sussmann of concealing his connection to the Clinton campaign when he brought the agency Trump-Russia allegations. (National Law Journal)
• A settlement offer that included an “illusory” time constraint for payment cost a plaintiff’s counsel $1 million in attorney fees on an $11.3 million verdict in a Florida appeals case. (Daily Business Review)
• South Carolina personal injury law firm George Sink, P.A. fired attorney David Charles Johnston after he was charged with entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. (ABA Journal) A bankrupt former KPMG Singapore partner sued UK Big Law Herbert Smith Freehills for allegedly getting him fired by telling his employer about his debt problems. (Financial Times)
• O’Melveny’s new lease triples its office space in Dallas in a new office tower. (D Magazine)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Reed Smith picked up transactional attorney Luis Perez as a corporate partner in Miami. He joins after 17 years at Hogan Lovells; Squire Patton Boggs hired veteran financial services in-house lawyer Robert Lendino as of counsel. Lendino was most recently executive and senior associate general counsel for Truist Financial Corporation; Barnes & Thornburg grabbed corporate and securities attorney Amy E. Lott as a partner in Dallas. She arrives from Gray Reed; McDermott Will & Emery added three transactions partners. Fund formation attorneys Luc Jansen, from Kirkland & Ellis, and Prem Amarnani, from Skadden Arps, joined in New York. M&A lawyer Nathan Mihalik joined McDermott from King & Spalding in Atlanta; employment law firm Jackson Lewis picked up litigator Lori Mans as a principal in Jacksonville, Florida. She joins after 17 years at Constangy. (JacksonLewis.com)
• Legal tech company DocuSign, as part of several leadership changes, recruited veteran big tech top lawyer Jim Shaughnessy to fill the company’s recently vacated chief legal officer role. Shaughnessy arrives after 10 years at enterprise management cloud platform Workday Inc., where he was corporate affairs senior adviser and general counsel. He has earlier been general counsel at Orbitz Worldwide, Lenovo Group, PeopleSoft, and Hewlett Packard. (PR Newswire)
• Hinshaw & Culbertson added consumer financial services attorney Akeela White as a partner in Chicago. She arrives from JP Morgan Chase Bank, where she was assistant general counsel and executive director; San Francisco-based privacy platform Transcend hired away Brandon Wiebe, the lead counsel for product at cloud communications platform Twilio Inc., to be its general counsel and head of privacy; Grand Rapids, Michigan-based health-care services company HealthBar brought in veteran corporate attorney Martin Axelrod as director of finance and general counsel; World Insurance Associates recruited former Simpson Thacher attorney Tim Robb as general counsel. Robb, who arrives after four-plus years as top lawyer at insurer Amynta Group, was before that in-house at insurance broker NFP. (Globe Newswire)