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July 20, 2010 |
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Sizing Up Sonnenschein
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| The merger was announced in late May, and now is only two months away: On Sept. 30, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal will do the deed with London-based Denton Wilde Sapte to create (drum roll) SNR Denton, at 1400 lawyers the world’s 25th largest law firm. We sat down with Sonnenschein chair Elliott Portnoy at his 1301 K St. office to ask in which museum they plan to place their lobby name plate. |
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| The merger marks the culmination of Elliott’s vision to go global after taking the reins in March 2007 of the Chicago-origin firm that has increasingly become east coast-centric. Step One was to get the New York office over the 200-lawyer mark, which occurred with the acquisition of Thatcher Proffit in December ‘08. Step Two was to find an overseas partner that could meet the growing international needs of Sonnenschein clients, who are increasingly demanding more services from fewer firms. SNR Denton will stretch across four continents, with 33 offices in 18 countries, compared to Sonnsenschein’s two outposts (Zurich and Brussels). |
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| The firms also fill each other’s practice gaps. Denton has over 3,000 clients, almost all of whom do business in the U.S. and need representation on the Hill from time to time, but Denton has no US office. Before becoming chair, Elliott had helped build one of the biggest public policy groups in the country, now headed by Mike McNamara. Similarly, colleague Clint Vince leads Sonnenschein’s energy practice, which does litigation and regulatory but historically has lacked an oil and gas dimension, due partly to Sonnenschein’s physical absence from the Mideast; Denton has 100 lawyers in nine offices in that region. Clint’s not wasting any time: Next week he’s hosting energy partners from both firms to brainstorm how to combine biz dev efforts. Oh, and also tap new talent, recruited after news of the merger, like tax partner John Harrington from Treasury, and energy counsel Carter Simpson from Exxon. |
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| Elliott is pleased that he and Denton counterpart Howard Morris announced the merger before word slipped out in the press, and also points out unanimous partnership votes for it on both sides. He’s happy to have the excuse for more time in England, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and, while at Oxford, founded an organization that teaches sports to kids with disabilities (called KEEN–Kids Enjoy Exercise Now), some of whom signed a basketball that Elliot keeps in his office. He's learned to make fast breaks even in cufflinks. |
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| WINNING WAYS |
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| Congrats to Blank Rome’s Hardy Vieux, named the DC Bar’s Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year, shown here doing typical spare time work like providing aid to earthquake victims in Haiti. Some of his other activities cited: representing a young woman during a review of her 35-year murder sentence, leading his firm’s organization of the Bar’s Consumer Law Resource Center at Superior Court, working with the ABA Task Force on the Treatment of Enemy Combatants, and getting ready to serve as president of Duke University’s national alumni association. In between these activities, Hardy’s got a practice in Blank Rome’s White Collar Defense and Investigations group, working on health care fraud cases, Congressional and agency inquiries, and corporate internal investigations. He started out as a criminal appellate defense counsel for the US Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. |
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| STEPPING INTO THE BREACH |
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| You can tell Chris Cwalina is new at Reed Smith—no pictures on the wall, freshly ordered business cards still in the box, tie on in July. But he’s got a lot to do, so who has time for frills? Chris just joined the 1,600 attorney firm from ChoicePoint, a billion-dollar data services company that had the nation’s first large-scale online security break in 2005, thereby schooling Chris (its VP and Assistant GC) in consumer privacy issues and FTC and multi-state attorneys-general investigations. Add to that experience as an Associate GC at risk management services provider Intersections, Inc., responsible for compliance with the FCPA and Children’s Online Privacy Protection, and lots of other federal and state regulation, and, presto, you have the perfect new Counsel in Reed Smith’s 30-attorney Data Security, Privacy, and Management practice. |
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| Here with practice group leader Jim Gallatin, learning the secret folding arms ritual, Chris is the third privacy lawyer to join Reed Smith in the past month, along with Nick Tyler, formerly AstraZeneca’s Global Privacy Counselor and a Chief Legal Adviser in the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, who joined the firm’s London office in June; and Frederick Lah, a Certified Information Privacy Professional and formerly a Consultant in the Financial Market Integrity Unit of the World Bank, who joined the Princeton office in July. The firm says it’s successfully defended more than five dozen national consumer class actions arising from security breaches or employee theft, more than any other law firm. |
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| WHERE ARE THEY NOW? |
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| At Brasserie Beck, of course, where the other night we snapped former Michigan Senator Don Riegle (now APCO chairman of Government Affairs) and former Arent Fox chairman Marc Fleischaker (now just a regular senior partner with a bustling association practice but finally time to go out). Some of you old timers may recall Don, now 72, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee in between Bill Proxmire and Al D’Amato in the early 90s, and as a one-time Young Turk who entered the House at age 28 and nearly 40 years ago penned a book, O Congress, that used to be assigned in political science classes everywhere. The still-young Marc, for his part, used to spend Julys in NYC helping to build the now thriving Arent Fox office there (and with his wife seeing some Broadway plays at night), but now gets to remain in DC, except for the occasional golfing outing in Scotland. |
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| SCHMOOZERS |
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| Among the 300 who turned out for our Bisnow Schmooza-Tennis the other night preceding Kastles action downtown: Dykema’s Eric Fingerhut, McDermott Will’s Joanne Ludovici-Lint, and Manatt’s Holly Roth. Eric’s been a busy guy of late, joining his firm four months ago to lead its trademark practice, and just beginning a tour on the board of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, the area's oldest and largest cycling advocacy group. And while you’re reading this on your iPhone at Dewey, Eric’s sticking around to educate the bicycle industry through an organization he founded last year, the International Cycling Law Association. Eric says ICLA is now a registered service mark in the United States and Europe and warns "not to mess with it" since he happens to know a good trademark lawyer. |
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