November 10, 2011
THE DAILY JOURNAL
By Casey Sullivan
LOS ANGELES – Six partners are decamping the Los Angeles office of Washington D.C.-based Hogan Lovells US LLP and taking their commercial entertainment and media litigation practices to Jenner & Block LLP.
The defections are complex commercial litigator Richard L. Stone, who focuses on intellectual property and antitrust work in the media and entertainment industries; Kenneth D. Klein, Hogan’s litigation, arbitration and employment practice manager; corporate transactions specialist Carissa Coze; commercial litigator Amy M. Gallegos, who focuses on the entertainment and media industries; intellectual property and entertainment litigator Julie Ann Shepard; and entertainment and media litigator David R. Singer.
The move comes as a heavy blow for Hogan Lovells in Los Angeles, which has been there since 1996 and last year lost prominent IP attorney and former leader of the firm’s intellectual property practice group Richard de Bodo, who took five other attorneys with him to DLA Piper.
With the latest departures, Hogan Lovells’ Los Angeles office will staff 27 attorneys, according to the firm’s website. The number of partners in the office will fall to six from 12, according to Santa Monica-based recruiter Alan Miles, who tracks partner movements between firms. The departing partners will join the eight who staff Jenner & Block’s Los Angeles office, who do much of their work in insurance coverage. Associates may follow them.
Ever since the Washington D.C.-based Hogan & Hartson merged with London-based Lovells in May 2010, industry watchers have pondered how the marriage would affect management and business structure.
“This certainly puts a cramp in Hogan’s effort to develop a California practice,” said Miles. “They’ve been here a while now. They’ve never really expanded the office like they wanted to.”
One departing partner declined to comment about the move because Jenner & Block hadn’t released it to the public, but he said the departure was opportunistic and puts the group of lawyers at a more “old style, true partnership than a mega firm.”
“Hogan has more of a diffuse reputation,” the source said, adding that the firm had struggled to grow in Los Angeles recently. “They do so much international and regulatory work. Jenner just has a different niche. Hogan is just a very broad-base firm. It’s easier to know more of your partners [at Jenner], and things are done more by consensus.”
Contacted Wednesday, Hogan’s Los Angeles managing partner, Stephen Kay, addressed the wave of recent departures and industry observers’ opinion that the Los Angeles office isn’t a relevant business center for the firm, which employs 2,300 lawyers worldwide.
“Los Angeles is an important market, and it’s absolutely part of our global strategic plan,” he said. “There’s six other partners in the L.A. office, and we’ve got 14 in Northern California as well, working across a bunch of different practice areas, with five in IP. We still have a significant West Coast litigation practice.”
Apparently trying to downplay the move, Kay said none of the departing partners specializes in intellectual property.
“We continue to believe there is a significant opportunity in this market, and we are going to continue to pursue that,” Kay said. “We have a strong global footprint…We’re talking about a relatively small group on a global basis.”
Jenner & Block Los Angeles Managing Partner Rick Richmond was not immediately available for comment.
The move was brokered by recruiter Larry Watanabe of Watanabe & Nason LLC, who also brokered Richard De Bodo’s move from Hogan to DLA Piper.