Law firms seal merger, Goodwin Proctor downsizes, Twitter hires firm denounced by Musk, former federal judge joins Latham
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Alabama-based Maynard Nexsen and Carolinas-based Nexsen Pruet, now Maynard Nexsen will merge to form a 550-attorney law firm called Maynard Nexsen after the first quarter of 2023, the firms said Thursday. Maynard's managing shareholder, Jeff Grantham, will add the role of CEO to his current title when the firms combine. Leighton Lord, Nexsen Pruet's current chairman, will become president and chief strategy officer.
Maynard has about 350 lawyers spread across 15 offices in Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, California, Florida, Tennessee, New York and Washington, D.C. Nexsen has about 200 lawyers, with eight offices in the Carolinas and one in Austin, Texas.
On Tuesday, Maynard separately announced that it is absorbing a four-attorney Austin-based firm, Soltero Sapire Murrell PLLC , in an effort to grow its litigation and transactional practices in Texas. Grantham said the Austin lawyers will soon be working out of one office, and the combined firm will continue to grow in the Texas capital.
Florida-founded global law firm Holland & Knight on Wednesday?said?it would be merging with 280-attorney Nashville firm Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis. At least?six other mergers?have taken effect since the start of the year, mainly between medium and large firms, according to legal industry consulting firm Fairfax Associates.
U.S. law firm Goodwin Procter has laid off lawyers, paralegals and other professionals in its U.S. offices, informing employees on Thursday that "current staffing levels are too high for our current and projected demand."
Goodwin is known for its life sciences, technology and private equity work. The firm has nearly 2,000 lawyers, according to its website. The cuts include 5% of the firm's U.S. associates, professional track attorneys, paralegals, science advisors and operations staff, Goodwin chairman Rob Insolia and managing partner Mark Bettencourt said in an internal memo viewed by Reuters.
The Boston-founded firm's leaders said:
While overall we remain busy, demand has dropped from its extraordinary heights of the past several years. This is true not only for our firm, but for the legal industry overall.
Many large law firms saw a drop in demand last year amid a slowdown in the M&A work that helped fuel many firms' bottom lines in 2021. Firms also hired lawyers at record rates to handle the surge of transactional work and other client matters, and some are now contending with how to handle swollen attorney ranks.
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Twitter has hired a law firm that its new CEO Elon Musk bashed at least twice on the social media platform, including in a tweet last month about the firm's work for former Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Lawyers from Seattle-founded Perkins Coie told?a San Francisco federal judge Wednesday that they will defend Twitter and former CEO Jack Dorsey in a lawsuit filed by a far-right activist who was banned from the site in 2018.
Musk tweeted last month that Twitter "isn't using Perkins Coie" as outside counsel and urged other companies to boycott the firm. Perkins Coie still represents Twitter in at least six other cases from before Musk acquired the company in October.
According to Wednesday's court filings, Perkins Coie is replacing?Jenner & Block?as counsel for Twitter and Dorsey in a civil RICO lawsuit brought by activist Laura Loomer against Twitter and other defendants.
Gary Feinerman, who stepped down from the federal bench in Chicago at the end of the year, has joined Latham & Watkins as a partner, the law firm said Thursday.
Feinerman is a partner in Latham's complex commercial litigation practice, the firm said. Prior to joining the federal bench in 2010, Feinerman worked at both Mayer Brown and Sidley Austin, large U.S. law firms with deep Chicago roots. He served as Illinois' solicitor general from 2003 to 2007.
President Barack Obama appointed Feinerman to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in 2010, and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate the same year.
Feinerman in November 2020 vacated the Trump administration's rule barring immigrants who may need government assistance from receiving green cards or visas, saying the agency's definition of who qualifies as a so-called "public charge" was far too broad.
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