Reuters reported Tuesday that Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton is poised to open in Los Angeles by combining with local IP boutique Keats, McFarland & Wilson. A spokesman for Kilpatrick, itself the product of a 2010 merger, declined The Am Law Daily's request for comment on the matter. Anthony Keats and Larry McFarland, name partners at the firm Reuters reports Kilpatrick has targeted, did not respond to requests for comment.
In the Midwest, Dykema Gossett hired two partners for its expansion into Minneapolis, while Dickinson Wright opened in Phoenix following its merger with 60-lawyer local firm Mariscal, Weeks, McIntyre & Friedlander, according to our previous reports. Grant & Eisenhofer, a Delaware-based plaintiffs firm formed by Am Law 100 refugees, also opened in Chicago this month after hiring veteran class action litigator Adam Levitt from New York's Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz.
The Am Law Daily also reported this month that Reed Smith is poised to open in Houston by targeting strategic lateral hires from other large firms in the Lone Star State. Back on the East Coast, national IP boutique Novak Druce Connolly Bove + Quigg opened a Boston office after acquiring seven-lawyer local firm Rissman Hendricks & Oliverio, according to sibling publication The National Law Journal.
The nation's capital is also proving attractive to some firms.
The Am Law Daily recently reported that Bennett Jones had become the first major Canadian firm to open in Washington, D.C., after rehiring former Canadian competition commissioner Melanie Aitken. Cleveland-based regional firm McDonald Hopkins has also opened in D.C. by hiring former congressman Steven LaTourette and his wife, according to the NLJ.
Other Am Law 100 and Second Hundred firms are looking to the Far East to extend their expansion efforts.
A decade after shuttering its Beijing office, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has received approval from local authorities to reopen in China's capital in the first quarter of the year, according to U.K. publication Legal Week. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati also opened an office in Beijing just before the New Year by relocating a partner from Hong Kong, according to sibling publication The Asian Lawyer.
Elsewhere in China, Covington & Burling snagged five lawyers from Wilson Sonsini last year in a prelude to opening a Shanghai office that officially went live this month, shortly after Covington entered the increasingly competitive South Korean legal market by launching a Seoul outpost. Also opening in the city after receiving local regulatory approval last year is DLA Piper, according to Legal Week.
Morrison & Foerster, which began preparing last fall to return to Singapore following a three-year hiatus, also officially reopened in the city-state this month after relocating several lawyers from its Tokyo office. Large firms have been busy bolstering their operations in the city-state as part on the way to pushing into other regional markets, according to a report this month by sibling publication The Recorder.
One of those markets is Myanmar, where the lifting of economic sanctions last year has opened up the Southeast Asian nation's abundant natural resources to Western companies. Two leading Singapore firms—Rajah & Tann and Zaid Ibrahim & Co—have recently launched Myanmar practices, according to U.K. publication The Lawyer. But with the country continuing to cope with ethnic unrest, The Asian Lawyer reported last year that many larger foreign firms remain wary of opening in the country.
