At least eight Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman’s partners in the US have quit to join Winston & Strawn’s corporate, finance and private equity practice, with a handful more expected to follow in London and the Middle East.
The lateral partner hires come less than a week after Winston & Strawn poached Pillsbury structured products practice head Jeffrey Stern.
The firm’s private equity head James Kelly, investment funds and management practice leader Jay Gould, corporate trust services leader Bart Pisella, executive compensation partner Scott Landau and corporate and securities partners Peter Alfano, Anthony Schouten, Michael Wu and Christopher Zochowski have resigned to join Stern at Winston in New York and Washington DC.
Zochowski’s appointment will establish Winston’s corporate practice in Washington, where he will also serve as co-chair of the firm’s M&A and securities practice.
Winston’s firmwide managing partner Tom Fitzgerald said the raft of hires was part of the firm’s strategy to “expand our corporate practice in key markets including New York, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Washington DC”.
It has also been reported that two other current Pillsbury partners – Abu Dhabi office managing partner Stephen Jurgenson and energy and infrastructure projects co-leader James Simpson Jr – are expected to join Winston.
Simpson is expect to join the London office and Jurgenson’s arrival will result in Winston & Strawn launching in the Middle East, with the firm contemplating whether he will continue to work out of Abu Dhabi or relocate to Dubai.
Both Simpson and Jurgenson left now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf in May 2012 for the Abu Dhabi office opened just months before (10 May 2012).
Pillsbury said in a statement: “While Pillsbury has had excellent partner retention in recent years, it is nevertheless a fact of life that partners come and go at all firms. We are very sorry to see any partner leave us. We wish these partners nothing but the best in their new endeavour.”
Until now, Pillsbury had been active in making senior lateral hires this year, picking up a 10-lawyer IP team in Austin, Texas from Bracewell & Giuliani.The firms chair Jim Rishwain revealed plans last month to double the firm’s headcount in London in the next year (20 February 2015).
Pillsbury also recently hired former Bingham McCutchen commercial litigation of counsel Gerald Zingone as senior counsel in Washington DC, and Littler Mendelson labour and employment partner John Scalia, son of US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, as senior counsel in January.
In February, Olswang hired a four-person IP team from Winston to join its London office including partner Richard Price, now head of arbitration at Olswang, and fellow partner Gareth Morgan (24 February 2015).
The post Winston launches in Middle East and boosts US, London with eight Pillsbury partner hires appeared first on The Lawyer | Legal News and Jobs | Advancing the business of law.