Legal News

Recruiting Finance Partners? Poaching Continues Amid Tougher Times

By Jamie Heller

As the economy turned, we at the Law Blog expected to see fewer partner-poaching announcements crossing the transom. Not so. We’ve seen a steady stream. And some lawyers are moving from practice areas which, well, haven’t exactly been hot of late.

Goodwin Procter, the Boston-based firm which in the last couple of years planted roots in California — more than 80 lawyers — recently announced it hired four leverage-finance partners in L.A. from McDermott, Will & Emery. Eric Reimer, whose practice consists in large part of representing private equity funds in financing of their M&A transactions, signed on along with three others on a team that does both private-equity financings as well as restructurings.

That M&A and private equity has been in the doldrums lately didn’t seem to bother Regina Pisa (pictured), Goodwin’s chairman. “Now’s our opportunity to make this investment for the long term,” she says, adding that a “confluence of factors” led to the timing of the McDermott deal, which her firm has pursued for some two years. “It’s not as much work as they would have brought if we were doing this deal two years ago or even a year ago but that’s okay because for us this is an investment. When we wanted this talent two years ago it was hard to find.” She says the move was strategic — the group’s financing expertise in the private-equity area dovetails with Goodwin’s private-equity practice.

Reimer says through December his group was busy, but acknowledges that “my book wasn’t as big in 2007 as it was in 2006.” While market forces did not factor into the move, he says, people are often more receptive to recruiting pitches in down markets simply because they have more time to listen. He calls Goodwin’s willingness to take on four more partners in the face of an uncertain market strategic and “aggressive” and says it shows their long-term commitment to the business.

Meanwhile, Winston & Strawn recently brought in as a partner a special counsel at Cadwalader, Laura Swihart. Swihart, like many lawyers at Cadwalader, specialized in mortgage-backed securities.

The managing partner of Winston’s New York office, Jon Goldstein, says the hire is a bit of a risk. “Securitization is in a deep deep trough and may never come back or it may be years,” he says. “But we’re willing to take these risks given that we admire her ability so much.” Goldstein adds that every lateral hire involves a cost-benefit analysis. “It’s an investment in something, a person, practice group or a field of law that we’re trying to grow. That’s the nature of law-firm growth. In the case of what we’ve just done, we believe it’s an intelligent move.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 31, 1969 (boomark / email).