Correction, 1/9/13, 11:15 a.m. EST: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Rebecca MacPherson’s new role at Jones Day, which is of counsel. It also misstated Gregory Morris’s former title at Kirkland & Ellis. It is counsel. The information has been corrected in the ninth and 14th paragraphs below. We regret the errors.

GEORGE FREEMAN, a former vice president and assistant general counsel at The New York Times, has joined Jenner & Block’s content, media, and entertainment practice as of counsel in the firm’s New York office, where he will represent clients in First Amendment litigation and matters involving media law, intellectual property, and other business issues.

Freeman arrives at Jenner some eight months after leaving the Times, where a 31-year career saw him litigate First Amendment cases, electronic database copyright matters, libel suits, and cases to protect the confidentiality of sources, while also advising the circulation, distribution, and advertising departments of The New York Times Company’s various publications on antitrust and contract issues. Among the high-profile cases Freeman handled during his Times tenure was his representation of reporter Judith Miller in her attempt to quash subpoenas seeking to compel her testimony in connection with the federal investigation into who disclosed CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. According to the Jenner press release announcing his hire, the Times did not lose or settle for money a single libel or invasion of privacy case in the United States during Freeman’s three decades with the newspaper.

Freeman says he was in touch with several firms before deciding that Jenner offered the best fit for his interests and expertise as he shifts into private practice. “There are many differences between in-house and outside counsel,” he says. “But I will be working on similar issues . . . and all the complementary work Jenner & Block does in IT and new media.”

In other Churn news…

WILLIAM BENNETT III has joined Blank Rome as counsel in the firm’s New York office. Working with the international and maritime litigation and alternative dispute resolution group, Bennett will use his experience in marine and shore-based matters to advise clients on personal injury, wrongful death, and cargo disputes. Bennett was previously a partner with Bennett, Giuliano, McDonnell and Perrone, which will now be known as Giuliano, McDonnell and Perrone.

Former federal prosecutor GLEN McGORTY is joining Crowell & Moring as a partner in the firm’s white-collar and regulatory enforcement group in New York. McGorty was most recently a senior assistant attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he worked on cases involving public corruption, wire and mail fraud, money laundering, insider trading, and international narcotics trafficking.

Dechert’s dispute resolution practice in Moscow has gained a new partner and Russian litigator in DMITRY KUROCHKIN. Kurochkin previously served as Herbert Smith’s head of litigation for Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa—before the firm merged with Freehills in June 2012 to become Herbert Smith Freehills—and specializes in commercial, shareholder, and employment matters.

Mediation and arbitration-services provider JAMS welcomes JEROME FALK JR. to the company’s alternative dispute resolution team. Falk, who will be based in the San Francisco office of JAMS, will focus on a range of disputes involving business and commercial, employment, insurance, securities, and intellectual property matters. Falk was most recently a partner in Arnold & Porter’s appellate and Supreme Court group, which he joined in a merger with his previous firm, Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin. Sibling publication The Recorder has more on Falk’s decision to join JAMS. 

REBECCA MACPHERSON is trading government work for private practice, leaving her post as the Federal Aviation Administration’s assistant chief counsel to join Jones Day’s Washington, D.C., office as of counsel in the airlines and aviation practice.

ANDREA BEATTY is the first partner hired Down Under by K&L Gates since the firm’s recent merger with Australian shop Middletons. Beatty, who joins the corporate practice in K&L Gates’s Sydney office from WL Ebsworth Lawyers, will work on regulatory and financial services matters.

GUY MOLINARI has left his own firm, which he launched five years ago, for Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton’s New York office. Molinari joins Kilpatrick as a partner in the firm’s mergers and acquisitions and securities team within the corporate, finance, and real estate department.

Loeb & Loeb is expanding its patent litigation and counseling practice with the addition of its newest partner, WILLIAM KRAMER. Previously the head of the computer science department with Miller Matthias and Hull, Kramer focuses his practice on intellectual property matters related to computer software, cable television systems, and so-called cloud technologies.

Mayer Brown has hired a pair of partners: JEANNETTE BOUGRAB, a former French government minister who will lead the firm’s public law and compliance group in Paris, and BILL HART JR., who advises oil and gas industry clients on a range of financial transactions and joins Mayer Brown’s Houston office from Baker Botts.

Paul Hastings welcomes two new counsel: PATRIZIO BRACCIONI, who joins the firm’s tax practice in Milan from Unicredit—a European banking service company where he served as a senior tax executive for the past 15 years—and former Kirkland & Ellis counsel GREGORY MORRIS, who joins the firm’s intellectual property group in Chicago.

DAN LEFORT, who specializes in oil and gas industry–related matters, has joined Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman’s energy and infrastructure projects team as a senior counsel in Tokyo. LeFort, who was most recently with Ashurst, has also worked in-house for such companies as Qatar Petroleum, Shell, and ExxonMobil.

RICHARD HOFFMAN has returned to Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr as a partner working with the firm’s transactional department and corporate and life sciences groups in Boston. Hoffman began his career as an associate at Wilmer predecessor firm Hale and Dorr in 1987, before spending the past 15 years as a principal of his own firm R.A. Hoffman Consulting.

Intellectual property attorney MICHAEL TOMASULO is moving to Winston & Strawn as a Los Angeles–based partner. Tomasulo, who joins Winston from Dickstein Shapiro, will work on litigation and counseling for the firm’s technology clients.

Former Manhattan federal district court judge BARBARA JONES has left the bench after 17 years and will join Zuckerman Spaeder later this month as a partner. As a judge, Jones presided over numerous high-profile matters, as detailed in this article from sibling publication New York Law Journal, including a 2001 ruling that found that banks issuing Visa and Mastercard violated antitrust laws and more recently, in modeling the Defense and Marriage Act in favor of same-sex marriage.

The Churn is compiled from law firm releases and announcements. Moves based on our own reporting will note this. Please send all announcements and news releases to [email protected].