Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman is the latest large California-based firm to raise salaries. Its San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego offices will have the $160,000 starting salary, and Sacramento first-years will earn $145,000. LA-based Munger, Tolles & Olson also raised first-year pay to $160,000, and San Francisco’s Shartsis Friese went up to $165,000. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips announced that on Jan. 1 it would also match the $160,000 rate.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has hired Heiko Kai Schultz as of counsel in the Los Angeles office. Schultz was formerly a partner with Kirkland & Ellis. His commercial litigation practice handles intellectual property, bankruptcy, securities, accounting malpractice and environmental litigation.
Source: www.lawfuel.com

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton has announced that first-year associates in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. will now earn $160,000. However, the L.A.-based firm is upping the hours-based bonus requirement from 2,000 to 2,100 hours. According to the firm managing partner, in 2007 the extra cost will come out of partner profits rather than increased rates. Seyfarth Shaw also raised its San Francisco and L.A. starting salaries to $145,000.
Source: www.law.com

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton has launched a Global Climate Change practice headed by partners Randolph Visser and M. Elizabeth McDaniel. This practice group will counsel and advocate for clients impacted by climate change regulation. Visser is a part of the Construction, Environmental, Real Estate and Land Use Litigation practice group in the firm’s Los Angeles office. He focuses on environmental compliance, government contracts counseling and environmental enforcement defense and administrative and judicial litigation. McDaniel is a member of the same practice group, but works in the San Francisco office. She is a litigator, and specializes in environmental and real estate issues and California’s Proposition 65. Along with Visser and McDaneil, partners Polly Towill and Stephen J. O’Neil will head the litigation side of the practice. The new practice group will operate out of most of Sheppard Mullin’s offices, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., San Diego and Shanghai.
Source: www.marketwire.com

California salary increases continue as Chicago firm Winston & Strawn is the latest to bump up starting pay to $160,000. The firm has about 70 associates in its San Francisco and Los Angeles offices. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld also applied the NY scale to its CA offices and its D.C. headquarters. Cooley Godward Kronish also increased first-year salariess firmwide to the $160K pay scale.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

This week Bingham McCutchen acquired 40-lawyer L.A. litigation firm Alschuler Grossman. Name partner and legal powerhouse, Marshall Grossman, had wanted to join up with a national firm for over a year, and discussions finally started in November. Alschuler’s former name partners Stanton Stein and Robert Kahan, on the other hand, did not want to go national, and so on Jan. 1 they left with 35 lawyers to form Dreier, Stein & Kahan. The merger is beneficial for both firms as Bingham was weak in litigation, and Alschuler found itself lacking a corporate componenet when Stein and Kahan departed. Bingham now has more resources for expansion in Southern California; with three acquistions in California over the past five years, the firm is growing significantly in the Sunshine State.
Source: www.law.com

Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps has recruited hot-shot land use lawyer, Timothy Tosta, from Steefel, Levitt & Weiss. Tosta will join the San Francisco office, along with four other real estate attorneys from Steefel. Tosta’s departure adds to the number of partner losses Steefel has faced in the past year; the firm’s attorney headcount is now at 50. Most of the lawyers who have left have gone to larger national firms. Luce, Forward has 200 attorneys and five offices in California, though it plans to expand further into the Bay Area and Los Angeles. It’s 21-lawyer San Francisco office focuses on real estate, bankruptcy, and business and real estate litigation.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

Phoenix-based firm Snell & Wilmer has its sights set on the West Coast for further expansion. The plans for growth come with the firm’s significant increases in annual revenues and lateral hires. The firm has been particularly successful with its litigation, especially products liability, consumer class actions and intellectual property; the other focus is transactional work. The firm’s first priority in its California expansion is Los Angeles; after that, there is consideration of opening offices in San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, and Portland. However, the firm chairman emphasizes that expansion must first be proceeded by acquiring the right group of lawyers or firms.
Source: www.law.com

Three new corporate lawyers have joined Reed Smith’s Los Angeles offices. Irell & Manella partner Ken Ikari and O’Melveny & Myers counsel Susan Alker are joining the firm’s LA office as partners, and Alschuler Grossman partner Ramsey Hanna is joining the Century City office as counsel. Reed Smith’s corporate and securities group has grown to 140 lawyers over the past few years. All three lawyers cite Reed Smith’s national and international platform as a big draw to the firm; the firm has over 1,500 lawyers and 21 offices worldwide.
Source: www.law.com

Loeb & Loeb has hired three more lawyers for its LA office. Laura Wytsma, a patent litigation partner in Los Angeles, comes from Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. The firm also brought in two associates, Timothy Bellamy and Paul Sagan, for the entertainment and media group. The firm now has 260 attorneys, up from 195 in 2005. Earnings also increased last year; the firm reported a 23 percent increase in revenue and a 27 percent boost in profits per partner. After hard times in the mid-1990s, Loeb & Loeb has rebounded nicely, increasing profitability by remaining midsized and focused. This success has attractive top lateral candidates; already nine lawyers have joined the firm this year.
Source: www.nylawyer.com