Musical Chairs: McGuireWoods Replaces Managing Partners in 4 Offices
McGuireWoods replaced managing partners in four offices in July, just a few months after appointing a new leader for its New York office.
The new managing partners are Craig Culbertson in Chicago, William Marianes in Atlanta, Barbara Johnston in Jacksonville, and Jonathan Rak in McLean, Va., the National Law Journal reports.
Johnston told the publication the change is “sort of a healthy turnover that happens from time from time.”
Molly Remes, a media relations manager for the law firm, said the change is part of a routine rotation. “It’s not so much we replaced them as we’ve rotated the managing partners,” she told ABAJournal.com.
There is no set schedule for changing managing partners, but the turnover isn’t unusual, said William Allcott, a partner and spokesman for the firm who works in its Richmond, Va., office. “This is something that happens, rotating people into and out of leadership roles, that happens frequently here,” he told ABAJournal.com. Although it’s unusual for four replacements to be made at once, “I think it was just a confluence of events that came together.”
Many of the lawyers who were replaced went on to other leadership roles, Allcott said. Melissa Glassman in McLean, Va., had recently taken over as chair of the firm’s complex commercial litigation department, while Richard Greenberg in Chicago and Fred Isaf in Atlanta were elected to the firm’s board of partners, a 22-member policy-making body.
Another managing partner, Halcyon ‘Hal’ Skinner in Jacksonville, had the job for eight years and had asked if he could give it up to devote more time to his practice, according to Allcott.
In May, the law firm appointed Philip Goldstein as the new managing partner of its New York office. He replaced Bill Newman, who left the law firm.
Updated at 10:45 a.m. on July 17 to include the comment from Remes and at 1:36 p.m. on July 17 to include comments from Allcott.
