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With the country’s elite legal recruiters now unified under one brand, CenterPeak defines what it means to be the strongest partner recruitment firm in the industry. For over 20 years, CenterPeak’s founders have been the driving force behind the most significant office openings, group acquisitions and partner placements across the United States.
We’ve placed over 2,000 partners and opened more than 40 offices for Am Law 50 firms, with combined practices worth billions of dollars.
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Featured Placements
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton add Bruce Grabow and Jennifer Brough to their Energy, Infrastructure and Project Finance team and their Real Estate, Energy, Land Use & Environmental Practice Group.
Bruce is based in Washington, D.C. and has expertise in the renewable energy sector. He advises clients regarding regulatory, compliance and transactional matters within the electric energy industry.
Jennifer joins the San Francisco office and works on regulatory compliance issues at the state and federal levels. She guides her clients through energy transition efforts including greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs and environmental justice and community engagement initiatives.
Foley & Lardner adds four lateral partners in a significant step strengthening its Health Care & Life Sciences practice. Joshua Skora will join the firm’s Dallas location while Andrea Cunha will join the Miami office. Leah D’Aurora Richardson will help start the newly opening Raleigh location.
Joshua represents public and closely held health care companies on corporate and regulatory matters and disputes. Andrea guides high growth companies from early stage to exit. Leah’s practice focuses on health law advising on complex regulatory, compliance and transactional matters.
Seven partners – three of whom are joining Willkie from other firms – are opening Willkie’s new Dallas location. Tom Tippetts, Brandon McCoy and Chase Proctor all join from Haynes and Boone, LLP. All three partners add to Willkie’s corporate bench with notable backgrounds in complex business transactions.
The Dallas office is the firm’s 15th global location and the second office opening in 2024.
Jennifer Recine, Sarmad Khojasteh and David Kupfer join King & Spalding’s Business Litigation team in the firm’s New York Office. The group has specific expertise in real estate litigation while also providing a variety of other complex commercial litigation services. Jennifer is a first-chair trial lawyer with broad experience in litigation across a range of industries. Sarmad’s practice focuses on complex business disputes, and he regularly practices before federal and state courts throughout the US. David has an extensive history litigating complex commercial disputes and representing clients in civil and criminal matters and regulatory investigations.
Wook Hwang has joined Sheppard Mullin as a partner in their Business Trial Practice Group, where he focuses on media and entertainment litigation. Wook’s practice includes copyright, trademark, false advertising and contract disputes. He has been recognized as a leader in media and entertainment litigation by Chambers USA. Beyond his work in the entertainment industry, Wook also represents clients in high-stakes commercial disputes across a range of other industries, including financial services institutions, insurers and real estate developers.
Karen Deschaine and Phil McGill join Wilson Sonsini's Corporate and Life Sciences group in San Diego as Partner and Of Counsel respectively. Karen focuses on representing life sciences clients from formation to exit. Phillip serves as outside general counsel and transaction-specific counsel to private and public companies on a broad range of corporate and transactional matters.
Winston & Strawn adds Stephanie Clouston as a partner in the Litigation Department. Stephanie’s practice focuses on business disputes in the telecommunications, manufacturing, energy, and construction industries. She represents clients across the United States in both State and Federal Courts. Stephanie guides clients through breach of contract, negligence, products liability and fraud matters and also has an active practice representing clients in regulatory and investigative matters before governmental agencies.
Clifford Chance advances their Energy and Infrastructure practice with the opening of a Houston office. The firm is opening the office with an initial group of ten partners, seven of whom are lateral additions. The new partners include David Stringer, David Sweeney, Jonathan Bobinger, Jonathan Castelan, Trevor Lavelle, Enoch Varner and Alexandra Wilde.
The group adds to the firm’s already impressive 300+ lawyer global energy & infrastructure team. The firm plans to continue its growth in this sector and in Houston.
Howard Kleinman has joined McDermott Will & Emery as a corporate partner in their New York offices. Howard’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and financial transactions with a particular emphasis on business and investors in Latin America. Howard is a leader in his field and has been recognized by Chambers and Partners, Legal 500 United States, and others. He joins from Dechert LLP.
Jennifer Saulino joins Sidley Austin, in Washington D.C., from Covington & Burling. Jennifer plans to work with Sidley partners to help build out its “already strong” products liability practice and expand its trial capabilities. She specializes in product liability trials, representing pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions, and others, as well as defending individuals and corporations in investigations and prosecutions. She recently served as co-lead trial counsel for Monsanto in its first multi-plaintiff victory in Roundup product liability litigation, stemming from claims that the weedkiller caused cancer.
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton opened their second Texas location with a Houston office.
The Houston team is founded by partners John Keville, Michelle Replogle, Robert Green, Andrius Kontrimas, Barclay Nicholson, Chad Mills, Kathryn Shurin, Steve Peterson and Eric Schlichter. The office boasts expertise particularly in renewable energy, corporate/M&A, intellectual property, commercial litigation and international tax.
John Keville will serve as office managing partner.
Michiel Visser has joined Sidley Austin as a partner in the M&A and Private Equity practice in New York. He joins from White & Case where he worked in the firm’s New York, Doha, Dubai and Paris offices. Michiel’s practice focuses on companies and investors based in the Middle East on matters related to M&A and general corporate counseling. His strong relationships throughout the Middle East include various sovereign wealth funds, government-related entities, family offices, and corporations. He is dual-qualified in New York and England and has wide-ranging experience in cross-border transactions.
Former King & Spalding Healthcare partners Leslie Murphy and John Barnes have joined Davis Wright Tremaine in Sacramento. They join as partners in the firm’s Healthcare practice group. Leslie specializes in representing healthcare entities in managed care and healthcare-related disputes. She regularly serves as lead counsel on behalf of hospital systems and healthcare providers in managed care disputes with health plans, and counsels clients on complex medical billing, coding and reimbursement matters. John specializes in managed healthcare arrangements. John advises clients on the structuring of risk-based managed care contracts (including capitation and shared savings arrangements), as well as traditional fee-for-service arrangements. He also advises clients on contract terminations, network access disputes, and revenue cycle practices. He often works with healthcare providers and provider combinations in managed-care risk arrangements, helping them to develop efficient, legally compliant business and operational structures.
Misty Sanford, Karen Lorang, and Aimee Contreras- Camua have joined Willkie Farr as partners in the real estate department. Misty will serve as chair of the West Coast real estate practice. Misty has a broad-based real estate and land use transactional practice involving all aspects of real estate, with an emphasis on purchase and sale, finance (representing borrowers in development, construction and permanent loans for all asset types), portfolio investments, leasing and environmental issues. Karen’s real estate and land use transactional practice includes purchase and sale, finance, leasing, land use and environmental issues. Together, they represent a wide range of clients, including institutional investors, developers, multi-national corporations, REITs, nonprofits, public entities and individual entrepreneurs. Misty and Karen will be joined by their RE team who will also be based in Los Angeles.
Chris Garcia and Rachel Kellert join Latham & Watkins white collar defense and investigations practice in New York from Weil. At Weil, Chris served as the Co-Chair of their White Collar Practice. He focuses on defending companies and individuals in connection with regulatory and criminal investigations, conducting internal investigations, and litigating securities class actions in state and federal courts across the U.S. Chris has also represented General Electric Company and several of its senior officers in connection with securities class action litigation in the Southern District of New York relating to statements made concerning GE’s dividend, access to the commercial paper markets, and exposure to subprime and noninvestment grade debt. Other representative clients include Morgan Stanley, Aeropostale, AIG, DIRECTV and Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Chris also previously worked as a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York. Raquel counsels boards and their committees, c-suite executives, and in-house counsel on risk assessment and mitigation, investigative findings and related remediation, and employment law, corporate governance, cybersecurity, disclosure (including in securities filings), and regulatory issues.
O’Melveny has firmly established a Texas presence with offices in Austin and Houston.
The Austin office is led by four Chambers-ranked lawyers: Phillip Oldham, Rex VanMiddlesworth, Benjamin Hallmark and Katie Coleman. The group focuses their practice on the energy sector with a particular expertise in project development, acquisitions, infrastructure, energy transactions, regulatory and administrative law, and litigation.
The Houston office is the firm’s third in the state and was started with four lateral partners: Angela Olivarez, Steven Torello, Ryan Cicero and Monica Hwang. Angela, Steven and Ryan bring M&A, private equity and finance experience in the energy and technology sectors.
The firm is committed to its Texas presence and plans to continue to serve their Texas based clients from local locations.
Wilson Sonsini continues its presence in Utah with the official opening of an office in Salt Lake City. Joining the new location is retired Utah Supreme Court Justice, Deno Himonas, who will practice in the litigation and appellate divisions after retiring from the bench. He has focused on issues relating to the access and affordability of civil justice within the U.S. court system throughout his legal career. Also joining Wilson’s team is partner Marc Porter who has a leading corporate practice with a focus on technology, consumer products, life sciences companies and venture capital firms. Marc completes many financings and liquidity events each year for early-to late-stage private companies as well as venture capital firms.
Matthew Schernecke has joined Hogan Lovells from Morgan Lewis as a partner in firm’s New York office. Matthew has a broad debt finance practice with extensive experience working with private credit funds and other non-bank lenders, as well as with borrowers, on direct lending, distressed/special situations lending, cross-border acquisition financings and ESG and impact investment financings. He works across industry sectors including financial services, life sciences and tech and telecommunications.
Alan Epstein, Michele Mulrooney, and Alex Weingarten launched the opening of Willkie’s Los Angeles Office. All three partners join from Venable LLP. Alan Epstein is a highly-regarded transactions attorney in entertainment and media, Michele Mulrooney is a leading estate planning partner, and Alex Weingarten is a nationally recognized entertainment and business litigator. They will be joined by additional lawyers who will also be based in Los Angeles. Together they bring market-leading experience representing major companies, investors, individual clients in corporate and M&A transactions, private wealth, trusts and estates, and litigation. Alan Epstein represents a vast array of clients in entertainment and media, including production companies and studios, content library owners and financiers, high profile talent, producers and influencers, technology companies, talent/management companies, bon on domestic and international matters. His practice focuses on corporate matters including M&A, joint ventures, financing transactions and executive compensation, and complex tax planning. Michele Mulrooney focuses her practice on estate planning for high-net-worth individuals and their companies and non-profits. Michele has been recognized by several publications as a top woman lawyer in Los Angeles as well as one of the nation’s leading Trusts & Estates practitioners. Alex Weingarten has a broad commercial litigation practice representing clients in areas of entertainment, probate, restructuring and business litigation. Alex has been recognized by multiple publications, including as one of the top 50 trial lawyers in Los Angeles and one of the top entertainment litigators in the nation.
Thad Behrens and Dan Gold join A&O Shearman’s Litigation team based in Dallas. Both have substantial experience in commercial and securities litigation and class action defense. The pair represent public companies, corporate directors and officers and financial institutions in disputes including securities class actions, shareholder derivative cases, M&A litigation, tender offer litigation, proxy contests, commercial cases and internal investigations.
Shearman & Sterling open their third Texas location with a new office in Dallas. The Dallas location is the firm’s seventh US based office and strengthens the most recent US growth strategy. Dallas is of particular import as it is home to dozens of Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries and is becoming a private equity hub with hundreds of firms headquartered in the city.
The other two Texas offices have grown to approximately 50 attorneys since they launched.
Jess, chair of Farella Braun & Martel’s white-collar crime and internal corporate investigations practice, has joined Baker McKenzie as a partner in its San Francisco office, aiding its Northern California expansion. She has for nearly two decades defended companies and individuals in cases involving the Justice Department and other government agencies, including representing executives and employees in the Yahoo! cyber breach investigation, one of the largest in the internet’s history, as well as officials at Samsung and Hitachi.
Bill Oxley joins Baker Hostetler from Dechert, where he was a trial partner and served as the firm’s Managing Partner of the Los Angeles office. He joins Baker Hostetler Los Angeles as the Head of Litigation. Bill has extensive experience in litigating class actions, false advertising, breach of contract, real estate, and defending nutritional and health product manufacturers and distributors against Proposition 65 claims. Since 2012, he has been ranked as a leading litigator by Chambers USA. He has also been recognized since 2013 for his products liability and mass tort defense work in the toxic torts field by The Legal 500. Bill is also a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has tried many cases to verdict including products liability cases for Union Carbide Corporation and contract and business tort cases for DHL Express (USA). He has also represented The Dow Chemical Company in environmental litigation, DOW AgroSciences in products liability litigation and many other pharmaceutical, manufacturing, entertainment, and environmental companies. Meghan Kelly has routinely acted as litigation and trial counsel for chemical, pharmaceutical, automotive, manufacturing, and food companies in their most important products liability, mass tort, and environmental cases. She has been recognized by the Legal 500 for her product liability and mass tort defense work and was named by the Philadelphia Business Journal to the 40 under 40 class of 2017.
Amar Thakur, a seasoned trial partner joins Manatt Phelps in the Los Angeles office from Quinn Emanuel. Amar is an experienced lead trial lawyer who has tried several significant patent cases to a jury verdict for Plaintiffs and Defendants. His jury trial successes as lead trial counsel for Defendants includes a complete defense jury verdict of no-infringement on all asserted claims from four patents on behalf of his clients Verizon Wireless and Novatel Wireless in 2017. He has litigated across industries including litigation wireless communications, medical devices, software, life technologies, chemicals and semiconductors in patent and commercial disputes. With substantial experience in acquisition of intellectual property and monetization of such assets, Amar’s practice focuses on the development and enforcement of patent portfolios, as well as creating partnerships between IP clients and private investors who can help to monetize promising patent portfolios. He is considered a pioneer in the development of new alternative fee strategies for patent litigation. Patent litigator Bruce Zisser, will join Amar at Manatt as a partner.
Derek Liu has joined Baker McKenzie from Wilson Sonsini in their San Francisco office as a Partner in the firms mergers and acquisitions practice. He focuses primarily on the technology and life science industries, where since 2013, he has signed transactions with an aggregate value of more than $60 billion. Derek has worked on some of the most transformative M&A transactions in the tech sector, with completed transactions in pharmaceuticals (Pharmacyclics' sale to AbbVie, Aragon Pharmaceutical's sale to Johnson & Johnson and spinoff of Seragon Pharmaceuticals, Astex Pharmaceutical's sale to Otsuka), software (Advent's sale to SS&C, Salesforce's acquisition of EdgeSpring) and hardware (Riverbed's sale to Thoma Bravo, Aruba Networks' sale to HP, Google's acquisition of Nest). His transaction experiences includes public and private company mergers, acquisition, and divestitures; tender and exchange offers; joint ventures; minority investments; and other strategic corporate transactions, representing both strategic and private equity clients. Derek’s experience also includes capital markets and financing, having assisted clients with initial and secondary offerings, debt offerings, leverage recapitalizations, and exchange offers.
Kirkland & Ellis opened its second Texas location with a new office in Dallas. Helping to open the office are some of the city’s most accomplished transactional lawyers. Partners Michael Considine, Kevin Crews and Thomas Laughlin will be part of the opening team. Michael represents companies and PE firms with their corporate needs including cross-border M&A, carve-out divestitures and joint ventures. Kevin’s practice focuses on M&A and private equity transactions, with a particular focus on the energy sector. Thomas advises on private equity investments, energy transactions and M&A.
Additional corporate attorneys joining the Dallas office include Lanchi Huynh, Dilen Kumar and Alex Rose.
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton enters Texas with a Dallas office.
Dallas was a natural growth location for the firm as they already had a substantial client list headquartered in or with operations around the area. The office will be led by Stephen Fox and Steven Schortgen.
The lateral founding partners include Gemma Descoteaux, Stephen Fox, William Mateja, Jennifer Klein Ayers, Steven Schortgen, Carolyn Benson, Yvette Mabbun, Jason Mueller, Dwight Francis and Evan Williams. The group brings elite experience in commercial litigation, employment litigation and counseling, fund formation and management, mergers and acquisitions, real estate asset management and white-collar defense.
Gibson’s new Houston office is joined by a team of acclaimed partners focusing on complex energy transactions in the oil and gas sector. The group’s experience includes public and private M&A, asset acquisitions and divestitures, and joint ventures, debt and equity capital markets, finance and restructuring, tax and regulatory matters. Gibson’s Houston location began with a team of eight partners and currently has a total of 73 attorneys.
The Houston office is now considered a legal powerhouse for energy, corporate and litigation needs.
Winston & Strawn continues to expand their Texas practice with a new Dallas office. A group of 23 partners join the firm, bringing significant experience in disputes and transactional matters, including mergers and acquisitions, securities, finance, real estate, tax, civil and criminal litigation and investigations and regulatory defense.
The Dallas office is led by managing partners Bryan Goolsby and Thomas Melsheimer.
