February 19, 2002
THE CALIFORNIA LAW BUSINESS JOURNAL
By Joel Rosenblatt
SAN FRANCISCO – Timothy Scott, a longtime partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, has been lured away from the firm to begin work today for Sidley Austin Brown & Wood in San Francisco.
Scott, 42, was brought over to 1,420-attorney Sidley to build a new litigation practice from scratch.
Scott said the new group initially would focus on his expertise in securities and commercial litigation, which he handled at Wilson Sonsini on behalf of Silicon Valley technology companies for 16 years. Sidley’s litigation group will soon add intellectual property and other areas of law to the litigation practice, he said. “It’s my expectation that [Scott] will bring [clients] with him,” said Ted Miller, managing partner of Sidley’s West Coast offices, adding that Scott will “attract significant litigation” to Sidley.
Most recently, Scott served on Wilson Sonsini’s operations committee, which manages the firm. He also has served as a hiring partner and a member of the management and executive committees.
His defection is “not going to have a critical impact on our litigation practice,” said Donna Petkanics, Wilson Sonsini’s partner and managing director of operations.
“We’re able to shoulder the departure,” she said. “We’ve got a very deep bench of litigators.”
Petkanics added that revenue and profits last year at Wilson Sonsini were the second-highest in the firm’s 45-year history.
From 1998 until last year, 712-attorney Wilson Sonsini was the largest law firm in the state. San Francisco’s Morrison & Foerster has now surpassed Wilson Sonsini in size.
While Sidley has a large litigation practice nationwide, until now the San Francisco office focused almost exclusively on capital markets, including corporate and public finance, and securitization and structured finance. Since May, when Sidley Austin merged with Brown & Wood, the firm has been looking to “enhance its litigation capabilities in the Bay Area, and Tim will anchor that effort,” Miller said.
Scott said Sidley has imposed “neither minimums or limits” to how many people he can hire for the new group. He will begin hiring immediately, he said. Scott declined to say which clients he is taking with him and said he had “conscientiously avoided any discussions” with Sidley about which attorneys he will take.
Fifty lawyers have left Wilson Sonsini in the past year, according to firm spokeswoman Andrea Vernetti.
Scott called the recent exodus from Wilson Sonsini “an unfortunate byproduct of the firm’s success.” While technology lawyer Frank Currie joined Davis Polk & Wardell in Menlo Park, Scott said other partners, including Judy O’Brien, Alan Austin and Barry Taylor, became so “free from financial concerns” at Wilson Sonsini that they could afford to leave for venture capital firms.
“A lot of these departures are people who didn’t have to work anymore,” Scott said.
Scott began his career at Sidley, working there during his final year at law school at the University of Chicago. He continued there after graduation, and left Sidley to join Wilson Sonsini in 1986.
Scott said he decided to leave about a week and a half ago. “I received a phone call, and returned it, and basically met up with old friends,” he said.