Baker McKenzie lands 17-lawyer transactions team from Munger Tolles, meet Donald Trump's lawyer in his hush money trial, and more ?
Reuters Legal
From the courts to law firms, we bring you the latest legal news. Subscribe to our newsletters: https://bit.ly/3nhgllA
?? Baker McKenzie lands 17-lawyer transactions team from Munger Tolles
Munger, Tolles & Olson is losing roughly 10% of its partnership to mega-firm Baker McKenzie, which said that it has hired a group of 17 transactional lawyers in Los Angeles from the smaller law firm.
The team includes 11 corporate and tax lawyers joining Baker McKenzie as partners, and six associates. Nine of the lawyers were partners at Munger Tolles, which had 84 partners prior to the group's departure, according to a Munger Tolles spokesperson.
The lawyers work across mergers and acquisitions, private equity, tax, funds and finance, Baker McKenzie said. The incoming partners are Jennifer Broder, Kimberly Chi, David Goldman, Michael Greaney, Tyler Hilton, Judith Kitano, Kelly Kriebs, David Lee, Brett Rodda, Matthew Schonholz and Nikole Zoumberakis.
Lawyers on the Munger Tolles team represented Intel on the $9 billion sale of its NAND memory chip business to SK Hynix. Baker McKenzie said other client representations include advising Berkshire Hathaway in its $11.6 billion acquisition of insurance company Alleghany, and representing Oaktree Capital Management in its sale of 62% ownership to Brookfield Asset Management in a roughly deal $4.8 billion deal.
Law firms have been hiring M&A and private equity lawyers as deal work is expected to pick up.
?? Who is Todd Blanche, Donald Trump's lawyer in his Stormy Daniels hush money trial?
Donald Trump's attorney Todd Blanche took a risk giving up a plush career at a New York law firm to become the first attorney in history to defend a former U.S. president at a criminal trial, and felt the heat almost immediately when a judge questioned his credibility.
Blanche, a former federal prosecutor, is lead lawyer defending Trump in his trial on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star. He is also handling several other criminal cases for Trump, who is known for cycling through lawyers.
Some of Trump's lawyers have faced sanctions or even criminal charges of their own stemming from their work for him. Blanche has already earned several sharply-worded rebukes from the judge overseeing the hush money case.
"Mr. Blanche, you’re losing all credibility," Justice Juan Merchan said at a April 23 hearing over whether Trump had violated a gag order restricting his public speech about jurors and potential witnesses. Blanche contended that Trump had been trying to follow the court's rules.
Blanche, 49, joined Trump's defense team ahead of his April 2023 arraignment on the indictment brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Blanche had previously represented several people in Trump's orbit. While a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft - one of the oldest law firms in the U.S. - Blanche represented Trump's 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort on state fraud charges that were ultimately dismissed.
Blanche also represented former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's former associate Igor Fruman, who pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law.
Blanche left Cadwalader and started his own firm when he took on Trump himself as a client.
领英推荐
?? Lawyers in PFAS water pollution settlements win $956 mln fee award
A U.S. judge on Tuesday awarded over $956 million in legal fees to plaintiffs’ lawyers who secured two settlements worth more than $11 billion with major manufacturers of toxic “forever chemicals” on behalf of public water systems.
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel in Charleston, South Carolina, granted unopposed fee requests after 3M, DuPont de Nemours, Chemours and Corteva last year agreed to resolve claims that their products polluted drinking water in the United States with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
The attorneys' award represents 8% of the two settlements plus roughly $21 million in out-of-pocket expenses. The litigation has been led by the law firms Napoli Shkolnik, Douglas & London, Baron & Budd, Motley Rice and FeganScott.
“This has indeed been a long-fought case, and it's been years of dedicated work without compensation for many involved,” Paul Napoli of Napoli Shkolnik said in an email.
The award will be dispersed in stages as the settlements are paid out, and a special master will determine how the funds are distributed between firms.
PFAS are a class of thousands of chemicals used in firefighting foams, nonstick pans and stain resistant fabrics. They have been linked to cancer and other diseases and are often called forever chemicals because they do not easily break down in nature or the human body.
?? Uber defends Nevada ballot petition to cap all contingency fees at 20%
In a new brief defending a ballot initiative to cap contingency fees in all civil litigation in Nevada at 20%, ridesharing company Uber argued in a mere 11 pages that its petition meets all of Nevada’s statutory requirements for court approval.
Uber’s brief is notably devoid of policy arguments about why the initiative’s backers believe the fee cap is a boon for Nevadans — a sharp strategic contrast with the approach taken by the fee cap’s opponents.
Columnist Alison Frankel has the story on the early battle over what would be the most sweeping and restrictive fee cap in the U.S.
?? That's all for today, thank you for reading?The Legal File, and have a great day!
For more legal industry news, read and subscribe to The Daily Docket.