Dallas firm Jenkens & Gilchrist has finally reached the end of its rope, as it announced that it would close its last office and cease practicing law by the end of the month. The firm has entered into a nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors over its past involvement in illegal tax shelters. Between 1998 and 2003 the firm’s tax shelter practice wrote hundreds of legal opinion letters supporting illegal tax shelters; in return, Jenkens will pay a $76 million civil penalty to the IRS and the firm has agreed to continued cooperation with the investigation. Though at one time the firm had about 600 lawyers in offices nationwide, it has since then lost about two-thirds of the lawyers and has closed a number of offices.
Source: www.law.com
Greg Coleman of Weil Gotshal & Manges has left for Houston firm Yetter & Warden. Coleman founded Weil’s Austin office in 2003 and was the head of its Supreme Court and appellate litigation group. At Yetter, Weil will start that litigation boutique’s first appellate team. After Coleman’s departure, Weil is left with twelve lawyers in Austin, including only one partner.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP announced the promotion of nine new partners in the firm’s Dallas and Houston offices, effective April 1, 2007. R. Craig Baker, Steven S. Camp, Michael P. Cooley, John A. Eliason, Brett D. Lamb, Colin Martin, Robert T. Slovak, and Jeannette Vloitos practice in the Dallas office, and John T. Woodruff works out of Houston. With offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Mexico City, Gardere is one of the Southwest’s largest full-service law firms. The firm specializes in the areas of corporate, banking, real estate, bankruptcy, legislative and regulatory affairs, tax, labor, environmental, and intellectual property.
Source: www.lawfuel.com
The legal business has been growing over the past few years, and correspondingly, there has been an increase in new partners at large Texas firms. According to the Texas Lawyer’s “The Texas 100” poster, twenty-three of the 25 largest firms in the state report promoting 146 attorneys to partnership in their Texas offices for 2007. That’s 6.5 percent more than the 137 attorneys promoted to partnership by the same firms in 2006. The majority of the new partners recieved their JD between 1994 and 2000, and 40 percent of them are litigators. Women partners comprise 32 percent of the new partners, while minorities make up only 9 percent. This is a change for both groups compared to 2006 when women made up 28.5 percent of new partners and minorities made up 16 percent.
Source: www.law.com
Winstead has acquired 12 more Jenkens & Gilchrist lawyers, adding to the 18 they already hired from the San Antonio and Austin offices. Six of the new additions come from Winston’s Dallas headquarters; the other half are leaving the Austin office. Jenkens’ numbers have dropped to under 200 attorneys in recent weeks; it is rumored that most of the remaining Dallas lawyers will move to Hunton & Williams.
Source: www.law.com
Bracewell & Giuliani has recruited two partners from Bingham McCutchen. Bingham’s former co-head of bankruptcy, Evan Flaschen, and Gregory Nye will join the Texas firm’s Hartford, CT office. The addition of these partners puts Bracewell’s bankruptcy team up to 14 attorneys. These recent hires are a small part of the firm’s overall growth. There are plans to open a London office, and Bracewell doubled its office space in NY. The expansion, especially in NY, is largely attributed to the arrival of name partner Rudolph Giuliani to the firm.
Source: www.thelawyer.com
Three corporate and securities lawyers from Winstead in Dallas recently moved to Bracewell & Giuliani. Partners Bruce Cheatham and Brice Tarzwell, and counsel Connie Stamets joined Bracewell’s 400-lawyer corporate and securities practice at the end of February. Cheatham commented that Bracewell’s New York, Washington, and international offices were a draw because of the benefit they hold for his practice. After losing Cheatham, Winstead reorganized, doing away with his former position of corporate and securities section head.
Source: www.law.com
Bracewell & Giuliani announced today that they matched market rates for first-year salaries in their New York office. The increase to $160,000 was made effective February 7, 2007. This leading firm has 400 lawyers in offices in New York, Texas, Washington, D.C., Kazakhstan and London.
Source: www.prnewswire.com
International firm, King & Spalding, announced the hiring of two new partners for its Houston office. Todd Mattingly joins the intellectual property practice from Haynes & Boone, and Steven D. Rubin joins the firm’s corporate group from Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Mattingly focuses on IP matters involving electrical and mechanical engineering, while Rubin deals in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, restructurings and other financing transactions. Including these two new additions, the Houston office has acquired 11 new partners over the last 18 months. In total, the firm’s Houston office has over 100 attorneys.
Source: www.marketwire.com
Ten lawyers from Jenkens & Gilchrist’s San Antonio office have joined Jackson Walker’s central Texas office. Four of the lawyers join as partner, one as of counsel, and the remaining five are associates. Two other attorneys from Jenkens are moving to Winstead’s San Antonio office. With the new additions, Jackson Walker’s office now has 30 lawyers. The decision to close Jenkens’ San Antonio office was made in January, and comes after the closing of the firm’s Houston and LA offices.
Source: www.law.com
