Wake Up Call: Venable Enters Miami Market With Local Tieup

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

• Washington-based Venable is the latest Big Law firm to set up in the hot Miami market. Venable, which has about 750 attorneys, said it’s combining with local multipractice firm Genovese Joblove & Battista on Jan. 1. GJB, with 30-plus lawyers and offices in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa, advises on large, complex litigation, including bankruptcy, securities litigation, as well as white collar and employment law, according to a statement. (Venable.com)
• Listed UK law firm DWF, which has about 1,100 attorneys, said it’s entering the Canadian legal market by acquiring Vancouver-based Whitelaw Twining Law Corporation for 27.7 million pounds ($31.76 million). Whitelaw, with 16 partners and 85 lawyers overall, specializes in insurance, commercial litigation, personal injury and dispute resolution. (DWFGroup.com)
• Global law firms, facing a slowing economy and rapidly shrinking profits, are cutting back on hiring. (Financial Times)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Kirkland & Ellis told a California federal judge it should get more than $16 million in attorneys’ fees for winning a $40 million jury verdict for power-supply developer Comet Technologies USA Inc in its trade secrets case. (Reuters)
• A federal judge denied Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes’ bid for a new trial. (WSJ)
• AXA XL, the property, casualty and specialty risk arm of French insurance multinational AXA, said it added a cyber insurance option to its lawyers’ errors and omissions insurance program. (PR Newswire)
• Linklaters’ partner and general counsel Michael Bennett has retired after one year as the firm’s GC and has not yet been replaced, according to a report. He’d been at the firm over 33 years, according to his Linkedin profile. (Law.com International)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Proskauer Rose added William MacGregor, who was executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary at Equitable Investment Management Group, as a registered funds partner in New York in its investment management practice. (Proskauer.com)
• Orrick recruited Federal Trade Commission attorney Anna Aryankalayil to join the firm’s antitrust team Nov. 14 as a partner in Washington. A former Dechert associate, she focuses on antitrust regulation for the tech, life sciences, and energy sectors. (Orrick)
• In another antitrust hire, Steptoe & Johnson hired a top Justice Department lawyer, Lee Berger, as a partner in Washington. Berger recently left the DOJ’s antitrust division, where he was chief of the civil conduct task force. (Steptoe.com)
• K&L Gates added debt capital markets finance attorney Jay Lee as a partner in Hong Kong. Lee arrives from UK firm Simmons & Simmons and was earlier in-house at Standard Chartered Bank as head of debt capital markets legal for Northeast Asia. (KLGates.com)
• Goodwin picked up executive compensation and employee benefits attorney Saba Rais as a partner in London. She arrives from Macfarlanes. (GoodwinLaw.com)
• Fox Rothschild snagged Loeb & Loeb intellectual property litigator Wanda French-Brown in New York office as a partner. (Fox Rothschild)
• Clark Hill said Holland & Knight corporate partner Jeff Harvey joined the firm as a member in Dallas. (Clark Hill)

Legal Education

• Hunton Andrews Kurth said it awarded a $25,000 scholarship and paid summer clerkship to Aasees Kaur, a first-generation law student at American University Washington College of Law. Kaur, a second-year student, is the first recipient in the firm’s new HuntonAK Pathfinders Scholarship Program. (Hunton Andrews Kurth)
• Snell & Wilmer brought in law school professor and assistant dean Ray English as senior director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. (SWLaw.com)