1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Some Law Firms Eager to Recruit Laid-Off…

Some Law Firms Eager to Recruit Laid-Off or Job-Hopping Lawyers

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 7, 2008, 5:57 pm CDT

Some law firms that had decided to beef up their structured finance practices before the credit market crunch are following through with their plans.

That’s good news for laid-off or job-hopping lawyers, the New York Law Journal reports. One of the early casualties was Paul Roberts, who was laid off in November from Clifford Chance where he worked as a senior associate. By February he had a new job making more money at the New York office of Alston & Bird, the story says.

Mark McElreath, co-head of Alston & Bird’s financial services practice, told the legal publication that the firm decided to expand its structured finance practice a few years ago. Since then it has been hiring good lawyers when it finds them.

Meanwhile, a seven-lawyer private equity practice has jumped from O’Melveny & Myers to Covington & Burling, the New York Law Journal reports in a separate story. The co-chair of O’Melveny’s former investment funds practice, Timothy Clark, will become co-chair of Covington’s private equities practice.

Also making a leap to a new firm are:

– Cadwalader special counsel Laura Swihart and three associates from the firm. They are joining Chicago’s Winston & Strawn.

– Eric Adams and Hays Ellisen of McKee Nelson, who leapt to Katten Muchin Rosenman in New York last month.

Roberts and Swihart told the New York Law Journal that their focus has changed since they joined new law firms. Roberts said he has “switched gears toward looking at all these provisions hidden in the documents that nobody really talked about before.” The provisions could be the focus of future litigation, he said.

Headline updated at 2:36 p.m. April 23 to clarify that Eric Adams and Hays Ellisen were not laid off from McKee Nelson.