The VLW Blog

It’s a sad story well-known to the legal profession — a law office victimized by a dishonest staffer.

In this South Carolina case, it was two separate law firms who had to scramble to make things right after Caroline Keys pocketed money by altering closing documents. As reported by The Sun News, one of the victimized lawyers testified, “This will continue again and again. She’s now in a small town in Virginia, and she’s going to prey on a small law firm there.” Not to worry right now, however. The South Carolina judge gave Keys three years to serve.

By Peter Vieth

Williams Mullen, Virginia’s third largest law firm, would be the key tenant in a 15-story office building proposed for downtown Richmond.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details of the $60 million project, which would go up south of Canal Street between Ninth and 10th streets and a portion of it would extend over the Expressway Parking Deck. Virginia Beach-based Armada Hoffler is the developer of the project.

By Alan Cooper

The Norfolk-based law firm of Taylor & Walker PC has started a voluntary four-day work week in its offices. The reason: It saves employees gas money.

Apparently companies across the country have been opting for a new four-day, 8-6 schedule; the program started in late June at the Taylor & Walker offices in both Norfolk and Richmond and will run until the end of the summer. And anyone who has a set five-day schedule can keep it.

The four-day plan also gives employees the option to have long weekends during the summer months, according to Jim Brydges, the firm’s managing partner.

By Paul Fletcher

McGuireWoods LLP will merge the Helms Mullis & Wicker PLLC, a Charlotte-based firm with 145 lawyers, on March 31.

McGuireWoods Chairman Richard Cullen said the firms’ “complementary expertise in capital markets, business litigation and corporate law … is a natural fit that will benefit the clients of both firms.”

Peter J. Covington, chairman and managing member of Helms Mulliss, said Charlotte’s emergence as the country’s second largest financial center and North Carolina’s prominence in technology and life sciences “are driving demand for the sophisticated tax, banking business and regulatory services that our combined firm will be able to provide.”

The expanded firm will have almost 900 lawyers. Here is the firm’s press release.

The Charlotte Observer had an analysis of the legal market there today.

LeClairRyan will absorb Wright, Robinson, Osthimer & Tatum at the end of next month.

The merger of the two Richmond-based firms will give LeClairRyan a West Coast presence for the first time and increase the number of attorneys to more than 270. Wright Robinson has about 50 attorneys, with a quarter of them in Richmond.

It is perhaps best known for its representation of defendants in mass tort cases, and the firm’s emphasis on providing discovery solutions in large cases was a major attraction for LeClairRyan, according Gary D. LeClair, the firm’s chairman and co-founder.

The firm, which has expanded to Boston and New York in the last 18 months, also was interested in Wright Robinson’s offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, which have a more traditional litigation practice.

Mark Yacano, a member of the Wright Robinson’s executive committee, said the LeClairRyan’s New York presence and its size and depth, especially in its litigation practice, were major attractions for his firm.

“We have a lot of complementary skill sets,” Yacano said. “It was a merger driven for all the right reasons, and we’re just as excited as we can be.”

Two big names in Roanoke’s legal community have changed addresses.

Frank Flippin and Doug Densmore, late of the firm that bears their names – LeClairRyan Flippin Densmore – have joined Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore LLP.

Both attorneys were founding members of Flippin Densmore Morse & Jessee, which was established in 1996. That firm merged with Richmond-based LeClairRyan in 2004 to become LeClairRyan Flippin Densmore.

Both men are business lawyers and Gentry Locke’s managing partner, Mike Pace, said in a release that their addition “greatly expands the depth and breadth of the firm’s expertise in all areas of business law.”

Flippin also is a past president of the Virginia Bar Association and past chair of the Virginia State Bar’s Business Law Section.

Densmore, who practices in the areas of corporate banking and securities law, has been a member of the Treasury Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia since 2005.

Reed Smith LLP will establish a presence in China when it merges with a Hong Kong firm on Jan. 1.

The partners of Richards Butler Hong Kong will become partners in Reed Smith, an international law firm originally founded in Pennsylvania. The firm has 77 lawyers in three Virginia offices, located in Falls Church, Richmond and Leesburg.

The Richards firm has more than 110 lawyers in Hong Kong and has an office in Beijing. There are plans to establish a practice in Shanghai.

Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers LLC, a consulting outfit, have published for the first time a list of “The Best Law Firms for Women.”

Fifty firms nationally were named, based on an application that covered issues important “to the retention and promotion of women lawyers.” Those topics included workforce profile, benefits and compensation, parental leave, child care, flexibility and retention and advancement of women.

Two of the big firms based in Richmond, Hunton & Williams and McGuireWoods, made the list.

And a number of DC-based firms, some of whom have Virginia offices, were on there as well:
• Arnold & Porter
• Covington & Burling
• Dickstein & Shapiro
• Hogan & Hartson
• Howrey
• Miller & Chevalier Chartered
• Patton Boggs
• Sidley Austin
• WilmerHale

Other firms on the list were based in different locales, but have offices here in the Old Dominion:
• DLA Piper US, New York
• Morrison & Foerster, San Francisco
• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, New York
• Reed Smith, Pittsburgh
• Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, Winston-Salem, NC

McGuireWoods, the Richmond-based legal giant, has a new managing partner, Thomas E. Cabaniss (see picture at right).

Cabaniss, a partner in the firm’s Charlotte office and the first managing partner from outside Richmond, succeeds William J. Strickland, who held the post for 11 years. Strickland will return to full-time practice in the firm’s capital markets department.

Cabaniss joined the firm’s Norfolk office from Kaufman & Canoles in 1985, moved to the Tysons Corner office in 1992 and helped establish the Charlotte office in 1998. He was on the executive committee from 1992 to 1998 and chaired the finance committee from 1996 until his election as managing partner.

He concentrates his practice in the areas of real estate and commercial lending, banking and creditors’ rights.

A native of Farmville, Strickland graduated from North Carolina State University in 1972 and from the University of Virginia law school three years later.

“Tom’s in-depth understanding of the firm, his passion for excellence and his devotion to client service will serve us well as we take McGuireWoods to the next level,” said Richard Cullen, the firm’s chairman. It has about 750 lawyers in 15 offices in this country, Europe and Central Asia.

Richmond-based LeClair Ryan will open an office in Boston with 10 partners from the firm of Donovan Hatem LLP.

The partners include A. Neil Hartzell, who leads the Boston firm’s business litigation practice group, and Kevin Kenneally, who heads its health care and insurance and tort litigation practice groups. Kenneally will head the office at 2 International Place when it officially opens on July 23.

Gary D. LeClair, chairman and co-founder of the Richmond firm, said LeClair Ryan and the new lawyers “have a lot of clients in common.” He said his firm is “very deep in the financial services industry,” and the Boston office and the New York City office the firm opened last fall will strengthen its position in that market. “There are a lot of good opportunities in New England and the Northeast,” he said.

The 10 Boston lawyers are all litigators, with about half involved in commercial litigation and the rest defending products liability, construction and professional liability cases, LeClair said.

Donovan Hatem had about 70 lawyers before losing the 10 to LeClair Ryan, and the lateral hires will give LeClair Ryan about 70 shareholders and 90 associates, LeClair said. The firm has an office in Washington and 11 offices throughout Virginia, including three in the Richmond area.