Wake Up Call: Three Big Law Firms Assist With Trans Group Merger

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

• Pro bono teams from three Big Law firms, including Cooley; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; and Brown Rudnick, are aiding with the merger of two leading national trans civil rights organizations. Cooley is advising the National Center for Transgender Equality while Morgan Lewis represents the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. Brown Rudnick was retained for trademark representation of the new group, to be called Advocates for Trans Equality. (TLDEF)
• Regulations around tech and cybersecurity “dominate” the concerns of corporate counsel, Norton Rose Fulbright’s annual litigation trends survey finds. As cyberattacks against companies and their counsel mount, fast-evolving AI has added to cyber and intellectual property risks, the survey shows. (Norton Rose)
• Addleshaw Goddard has been granted a foreign law license to work in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the London-based firm’s fourth office in the Middle East and North Africa. In addition to oil and other energy work, the firm will advise clients on M&A deals, infrastructure transactions, and banking and finance. (Arab News)
• Courts are jammed up with “apparently trivial” suits about a wide range of “frivolous” matters, rousing the ire of tort reformers. In one suit, a man sued Meta after being named on a Facebook page about “toxic men,” and in another, plaintiffs sued Hershey Co. over Reese’s Halloween candies revealed to be just “blobs of chocolate” instead of pumpkins and ghosts as advertised. (New York Post)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• David Ereira has joined Quinn Emanuel as a partner in London. He joins from Paul Hastings.
• Cynthia Beyea has joined Dechert LLP as a partner in the global financial services group in Washington, D.C.
• Craig M. Warner has joined Duane Morris as a partner in the trial practice group in the Dallas office. He was a partner at Bell Nunnally.
• Aliki Sofis has been named co-managing partner of the Boston office of Quinn Emanuel.
• Dabney Pettus has joined Clark Hill as a member of the litigation practice and admiralty and maritime industry group in the San Antonio, Texas, office.
• R. Nelson Williams has joined Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner as a partner in the employment and labor practice in St. Louis, Mo. He joins from Thompson Coburn.
• Kevin Woltjen is joining Nelson Mullins LLP as a partner in the Dallas office.
• Thomas P. O’Brien has joined Greenberg Traurig as a shareholder with the the white collar defense and investigations and litigation practices in Los Angeles. He joins from Ellis George Cipollone O’Brien LLP.
• Mary Lavelle has joined Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as a partner in its private capital team and global transactions practice in London. She joins from Akin Gump.
• Ruta Kalvaitis Skučas has joined Crowell & Moring as a partner with the environment, energy, and natural resources practice group.
• Wayne Aaron has joined Katten Muchin Rosenman as a partner with the financial markets and funds department in New York.
• Rose Standifer and Allie Clark have joined Foley Hoag as partners with the emerging company and venture capital practice group in Denver, Colo. They join from Sage Law Group.