The VLW Blog

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 […]

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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 […]

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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, […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Spilman, Thomas & Battle PLLC, a 102-lawyer firm based in Charleston, W. Va., has offices in Pennsylvania and North Carolina but not in Virginia.
That will change July 1 when Spilman absorbs the seven-lawyer Roanoke firm of Melchionna, Day, Ammar & Black PC.
The combined firms will take the Spilman name, and the four shareholders of Melchionna […]

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Ray Diaz and Ed O’Connell, both experienced community association lawyers, have left Vienna-based Rees, Broome & Diaz to join Whiteford Taylor & Preston. The latter firm, with its home base in Baltimore, has over 155 lawyers in five offices throughout Maryland, DC and Virginia.
Both men will staff WTP’s new Northern Virginia office, which will […]

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The personal injury firm of Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen has named Douglas A. Barry president.
As its name indicates, the Allen firm is a family shop and Barry is the first president who is not a family member. Founded in 1910, the Richmond-based firm has the largest personal injury practice in the state.
Barry, 49, joined […]

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Two prominent Central Virginia family law practices have joined forces. Effective today, Hopewell attorney Lawrence D. Diehl will merge his practice with The Barnes Law Firm, headed by Edward D. Barnes. The firm will operate under the name Barnes & Diehl PC, and remain at the Barnes Firm’s current Chesterfield office.

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Hunton & Williams, the Richmond-based legal giant, will absorb the core of the defunct Jenkens & Gilchrist law firm, the Dallas-based group that closed its doors last week after settling claims that it provided legal advice justifying phony tax shelters.
Those activities were conducted out of the firm’s Chicago offices, and Wally Martinez, Hunton’s managing partner, […]

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