August 1, 2005

THE DAILY JOURNAL

By Amy K. Spees

SAN FRANCISCO –  Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman has tapped benefits expert Christine Richardson as a partner in the firm’s San Francisco office.

Richardson, formerly a partner with Phoenix-based Littler Mendelson, joined Pillsbury July 25 and plans to draft benefits packages for the firm’s growing technology clients.

Richardson is part of the firm’s 17-lawyer executive compensation and benefits practice, led by partner Susan Serota in New York.

Serota said Richardson brings depth to the San Francisco office and has an excellent reputation as co-chair of the employee benefits mergers and acquisitions subcommittee of the tax section of the American Bar Association.

“There is a lot of mergers and acquisitions activity in San Francisco, and she’ll be able to help the corporate partners with those issues,” Serota said.

Pillsbury’s executive compensation and benefits practice is growing, she said.

The group could support two associates on the West Coast and two on the East Coast, given its needs at any particular time.

Serota said that, if the firm finds the right candidate, partnership opportunities also could be available.

“This is something that has huge potential for activity and has for the last 30 years and will probably for next 50,” she said.

Richardson was an associate with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati for three years when she joined Littler Mendelson in 2001.

At Wilson, Richardson helped negotiate, from a benefits perspective, the purchase of the Seattle SuperSonics basketball team and Hewlett Packard Co.’s spin-off Agilent Technologies.

She said her clients go with her to Pillsbury.

Richardson said that most of her practice is setting up the benefits plans for technology companies as they merge or acquire new companies and that she was impressed by Pillsbury’s team approach.

“I was looking for someone who had a pretty well-known technology practice,” she said. “I think the first thing I want to do is keep the relationships I have with my current clients and do cross-marketing with clients at Pillsbury, and there are a lot of them.”

Wesley Fastiff, a senior partner in Littler Mendelson’s San Francisco office, said he sees Richardson’s decision as returning to a more traditional full-service law firm.

“I think she wanted to do more mergers and acquisitions work on a corporate commercial-type basis,” Fastiff said. “We have a number of lawyers in San Francisco and other locations who do a great deal of benefits, … so it’s not going to be a loss of business but the loss of a personal friend for me.”

Pillsbury Winthrop has 950 lawyers in 16 U.S. and international offices, and Littler Mendelson has 400 lawyers in 28 U.S. offices.