An array of high-profile litigators from Irell & Manella and Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi are starting their own firms as January’s annual “running of the laterals” begins.

JOHN HUESTON, chair of the business trial and crisis management practice at Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, is leaving the firm with corporate crisis and white-collar defense cochair BRIAN HENNIGAN to form a high-end, 30-lawyer litigation boutique in Southern California, according to a press release and report by sibling publication The Recorder.