Wake Up Call: Walmart’s Longtime Top Lawyer Announces Exit

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

• Walmart Inc. executive vice president and general counsel Karen Roberts said in a LinkedIn post that she’s leaving the retail giant after 27 years. She started at the company as a real estate manager straight out of the University of Arkansas Law school in 1995. She said she’s still mulling what to do next but her priorities include family, travel, and hobbies. (LinkedIn)
• Transatlantic firm Womble Bond Dickinson and London-based BDB Pitmans have reportedly abandoned their merger talks that would have created a firm with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. (The Lawyer)
• The arrival of Big Law firms to South Florida is boosting demand for smaller firms already in the market in a kind of trickle-down effect, lawyers said. (Daily Business Review)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• London-headquartered Big Law firm Watson Farley & Williams opened an office in Seoul, Korea, with two partners hired away from K&L Gates and Herbert Smith Freehills. (WFW.com)
• Chief Justice John Roberts is named in a complaint to Congress and the Justice Department claiming that his ethics disclosures have failed to fully disclose the extent of his wife’s work as a legal recruiter. (New York Times) (Politico)
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is negotiating with three of four of his former deputies whose whistleblower lawsuit accuses him of firing them in retaliation after they made criminal allegations against him. (Texas Tribune)
• A Biden nominee to a federal trial court seat failed a US senator’s pop quiz about the US Constitution. (National Law Journal)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati recruited former US Securities and Exchange Commission official Tamara Brightwell as a corporate partner in Washington in its public company representation practice. She most recently served as the SEC’s disclosure review program director in the corporate finance division. (WSGR.com)
• Goodwin Procter snagged DLA Piper technology and life sciences M&A partner Jon Olsen as a partner in Southern California. (GoodwinLaw.com)
• White & Case picked up energy and infrastructure M&A lawyer Hayden Baker as a partner in New York. He arrives from Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders. (WhiteCase.com)
• Sidley Austin brought back European restructuring attorney Kieran Sharma as a partner in London. He was an associate at the firm earlier in his career and returns from investment firm Strategic Value Partners, where he was a director. (Sidley.com)
• Carlton Fields added a team of eight lawyers, including two shareholders, and three staff members to its business litigation practice across three offices including its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, New York City, and Florham Park, New Jersey. They arrive from Bressler Amery & Ross. (CarltonFields.com)
• Jenner & Block hired commercial litigator An Tran as a partner in San Francisco. (Jenner.com)
• Womble Bond Dickinson hired real estate and hospitality attorney Tara Gorman as a partner in Washington. She arrives from Loeb & Loeb. (WombleBondDickinson.com) Denver-based hotel investor Mission Hill Hospitality, owned by private equity firm KSL Capital Partners, hired longtime Davis Graham & Stubbs real estate partner Catherine Hance as general counsel. (Hospitality.net)
• Bio-Techne Corporation promoted in-house attorney Shane Bohnen to senior vice president, general counsel effective March 3. (PR Newswire)
• Ivanhoe Electric hired mining and metals industry in-house veteran Cassandra Joseph as vice president, GC, and corporate secretary. (Accesswire)

Legal Education

• The Duke Energy Foundation created a scholarship at North Carolina Central University School of Law to commemorate a Black soldier who was shot to death by one of its bus drivers in 1944 after the soldier refused to move to the back of the bus. (Law.com)