Christopher Reeder and a team of three other attorneys have joined Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton as a part of the firm’s Business Trial practice group. The team joins the firm’s L.A. office, which has over 150 attorneys. Reeder, along with special counsel Beverly Lu and associates Gabriel Green and Gene Wu most recently practiced with Lord, Bissell & Brook in Los Angeles. Reeder’s work focuses on commercial law, real estate, franchise, business practices, intellectual property, employment and labor, construction, aviation, entertainment, hospitality and class action litigation.
Source: www.earthtimes.org

Kirkland & Ellis’s L.A. office has faced a number of departures over the past six months, bringing the 115-lawyer office down to about 90. About half of those attorneys who left were partners, some of whom are moving on to a new stage in their career. Now the number of partners and associates are about equal, creating a slight sense of imbalance. The L.A. office is strong in civil litigation, IP, bankruptcy, and corporate law, and firm sources report confidence in the office’s future growth.
Source: www.law.com

Several firms that entered the L.A. market last year are celebrating a successful first year. Despite the competitive lateral market, these firms have managed to significantly increase their headcounts. Goodwin Procter, had a particularly good year in California, opening two offices in L.A. and others in San Diego, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. Steptoe & Johnson has grown their Century City office to 22 lawyers, finding success in recruiting in West L.A. Whereas Steptoe has grown using a lateral-by-lateral approach, Venable has built its L.A. office by combining two local 10-lawyer boutiques.
Source: www.law.com

D.C. based Dickstein Shapiro has added four attorneys from Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner’s L.A. office, which has seen more than a dozen departures since its fall merger. Partners James Turken and Amy Rubinfeld, along with two associates from Thelen’s commercial litigation group have joined the 20-lawyer office in L.A. Thelen’s office now has about 50 attorneys, down from 65 at the time of its merger with Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner.
Source: www.nylawyer.com

With the hiring of two former Dechert partners, Dewey Ballantine has expanded its financial services practice and opened a new office in Charlotte, NC. James R. Bryant III and W. Todd Stillerman will open the new office in the second-largest banking center in the U.S. Their structured finance practice focuses on structured real estate products and equity investments, including the representation of issuers and underwriters in commercial mortgage-backed securitization (CMBS) transactions, real estate CDOs and the securitization of other real estate interests, sale-leaseback, mezzanine financing, and syndicated finance transactions. Dewey has over 20 partners in its Structured Finance Group located in New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., London, Milan and Warsaw; the firm has hired 17 lateral partners since the beginning of April.
Source: www.carolinanewswire.com

DLA Piper has raised starting salaries in its Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices to $160,000. Sacramento first-years will get $145,000. Earlier in the year the firm raised salaries for CA intellectual property associates to $160,000 but left all other associates at $145,000. The firm assured associates that the raise will not mean higher billing rates, an increase benchmark hours requirements, or a reduction in bonus pay.
Source: www.law.com

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