Legal Pad

Naming Names: Orrick's Heller Recruits

Oct. 10:  Mass layoffs at Heller.  Full story, password-free, at CalLaw.com.

Today’s big news: Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has picked up the largest single group of Heller partners to date — 26 of them, including three former chairmen and eight practice heads.

Update: Make that 27.  Orrick just announced that Jonathan Palmer, another Heller partner from the antitrust practice, will continue to split his time between Seattle and Hong Kong with Orrick.

The group includes Barry Levin, Robert Rosenfeld and Larry Popofsky, the three most recent chairmen of the firm. Matt Larrabee, the current head of the firm, did not join the group.

Fourteen partners will join Orrick in San Francisco, five will join in Washington, D.C., four in Seattle, three in New York and one in London. No one seems to have word of whether associates or staff are coming along, but we've got a few calls out and will update as we learn more.

Orrick has taken on 73 new partners this year, including the Heller partners and another 20 through a merger in Germany with Hölters & Elsing.

The press release is out and the news is making the rounds, but quite a few sites seem not to have all the names straight.  Full breakdown after the jump.

A Federal Appellate Judgeship? Nah, No Thanks

Legal news from around the web:

Supreme Court or bust: The blog of our sibling publication, Legal Times, has an interesting tidbit about former L.A. U.S. Attorney Debra Yang in its highlights of the U.S. attorney firings report. Legal Pad wonders: Who turns down an invitation to sit on a federal appellate court? (Someone who can make several times the salary of an appellate judge in private practice, we guess would be the answer.)

This goes double for crowded elevators: The Wage and Hour blog busted some judges who were talking shop -- loudly -- outside the California Judges Association convention last week in Monterey. We're glad to know that some judges are personally troubled by class action settlements that yield big bucks for attorneys and next to nothing for class members, even as they seem to rubber-stamp away.

Politics is bad for business -- unless it's my politics: News reports (originally from Legal Pad and Cal Law) about Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partner Dean Criddle's $5,000 contribution to the Proposition 8 campaign sparked a debate at the firm about gay rights, free speech and common workplace courtesy, according to Above the Law.

—  Scott Graham