Wake Up Call: Tyson Foods Promotes Compliance Head to Top Lawyer

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

Food industry giant Tyson Foods Inc. promoted senior vice president and head of law and compliance Adam Deckinger to general counsel and secretary. He’s a former Boeing litigation counsel and Boies Schiller Flexner attorney. Deckinger will succeed another Boeing veteran, Amy Tu, Tyson’s chief legal officer and secretary. She was named Tysons’ president, international & chief administrative officer in September. Earlier this month, poultry producer Butterball LLC poached Tyson chief counsel Brett Worlow for general counsel. Butterball and Tyson have been co-defendants in price-fixing litigation against major turkey suppliers. (TysonFoods.com)
Chicago US Attorney John Lausch plans to leave the Justice Department “in early 2023” to return to the private sector, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday. Lausch, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner, was appointed by Trump in 2017. (NBCChicago.com) Earlier this week, Garland asked Lausch to review classified documents found in a former office of President Joe Biden. Garland appointed Gibson Dunn partner Robert Hur, also a Trump DOJ veteran, as special counsel in that probe yesterday. (BLAW)
Stanford Law tax professor Joseph Bankman has reportedly hired Kaplan Hecker & Fink partner Sean Hecker to advise him as federal prosecutors probe alleged cryptocurrency fraud by Bankman’s son, former FTX.com CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. (Reuters)

Lawyers, Law Firms

US law firms made progress on boosting diversity of their associates in 2022 but progress on partner diversity lagged “far behind,” according to a new report from the National Association for Law Placement. The full report is 45 pages. (NALP.org)
The California state bar launched a program to recognize law firms’ efforts to boost their diversity. (The Recorder)
Atlanta law firms are taking different approaches to getting attorneys back into office post-pandemic. (Daily Report Online)
Mayer Brown appointed partners Tim Keeler and Nikolay Mizulin as co-leaders of its international trade practice. It named partner Howard Waltzman to co-leader of its public policy, regulatory and government affairs practice, joining partner Phil Recht in that role; Norton Rose Fulbright appointed Hamburg, Germany-based partner Stefan Feuerriegel as global head of real estate; Scarinci Hollenbeck brought in veteran worklaw attorney Lester Aron as deputy managing partner. He was at Sills Cummis & Gross as partner and co-chaired the firm’s education and labor & employment practice groups and served as counsel for large intuitions and New Jersey’s governor’s office; Womble Bond Dickinson named former intellectual property litigation chair John Morrow office managing partner in Winston-Salem and Greensboro, North Carolina. (WombleBondDickinson.com)

Norton Rose Fulbright brought back Houston-based energy transactions attorney Mark Jones, who was at the firm earlier in his career and returns from BakerHostetler as partner in the corporate, M&A and securities practice. (NortonRoseFulbright.com)
Loeb & Loeb said corporate partner Henry Yin will join the firm in Hong Kong and Beijing as chair of Asia M&A and technology transactions. He arrives from Cooley LLP where he was partner and corporate practice head in Beijing and was earlier at Kirkland & Ellis. (Loeb.com)
Finnegan said trademark attorney Lisa London returned to the firm as of counsel. (Finnegan.com)
Dentons partner Andrew Cheung announced on LinkedIn that he took a job at UK firm Pinsent Masons as global general counsel. (LinkedIn.com)
Amerisure Insurance promoted corporate litigation leader Stephanie Haas to vice president, general counsel & corporate secretary. (PR Web)

Reed Smith promoted 37 associates to partner and 34 to counsel; Norton Rose Fulbright promoted 36 attorneys to partner worldwide, evenly split between men and women; Wilson Elser promoted 28 to partner; Duane Morris promoted 13 to partner; Snell & Wilmer promoted 13 attorneys to partner effective March 1 and six to counsel, effective Jan. 1; Spencer Fane elected 11 attorneys to partner. (SpencerFane.com)

Wake Up Call won’t publish Monday, Jan. 16 due to the holiday. We’ll resume our regular weekday publication schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 17.

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