September 7, 2010

THE RECORDER

By Petra Pasternak

SAN FRANCISCO – DLA Piper is cherry-picking from Nixon Peabody again. This time, it’s bagged two San Francisco litigators, Paul Hall and Todd Toral.

Hall, who represents financial institutions in class action, wage-and-hour and ERISA matters, most recently led Nixon’s financial institutions litigation team. Toral, who focuses on finance and workout and insolvency matters, was formerly deputy commercial litigation practice group leader at Nixon.

The laterals did not respond to requests for comment.

Stephen Cowan, DLA’s San Francisco office managing partner, said the firm learned about Toral and Hall from Southern California recruiting shop Watanabe Nason Schwartz & Lippman. Cowan said while DLA has an established bench in financial institutions, bankruptcy and class action practices nationwide, its squadron of attorneys for those matters in San Francisco “ about 15 full-time practitioners “ is small.

“These guys have a depth of relationships and a level of expertise that substantially enhance that,” Cowan said. “It lets us grow from our strength, add to what we have and make us even more effective in servicing clients “ and maybe even gain new clients.” DLA’s current clients include Citibank, Prudential, Union Bank, John Hancock, New York Life and UC Regents, among others.

For many lawyers, DLA is appealing for its global reach, said Southern California legal consultant Peter Zeughauser, who has worked with both firms in the past but wasn’t involved in this latest move. DLA, which has about 3,500 lawyers in offices around the world, has also been expanding in California, recently adding 16 IP lawyers, including six IP lawyers, from Hogan Lovells in Los Angeles. Zeughauser said partners at smaller firms wonder how long it will take for their own firm to achieve wider reach. “There’s a growing perception in the market that the firms of the future will have robust global platforms.”

Nixon Peabody has been through a bad spell lately, losing at least nine East Coast partners in the past few months, among them prominent practice group leaders in New York, many of whom joined DLA. In June, 14 lawyers in the bank finance, corporate, securities and private equity practice areas, including four partners, joined Pillsbury’s New York office.

A Nixon Peabody spokeswoman said in an e-mail that growth in the Bay Area is a priority. “We recognize Paul and Todd’s past contributions to the firm,” the spokeswoman wrote. “We are proud of our strong 30 percent business growth [in revenue] in Northern California over the past two years.”