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Jenner & Block the Latest Firm to Open in the Los Angeles Area
The National Law Journal
April 14, 2009
Downtown Los Angeles.
Jason Doiy / The Recorder
Jenner & Block has snagged two partners from Kirkland & Ellis to open its first California office, the latest of about a dozen law firms that have set up shop in the Los Angeles area in recent months.
Rick Richmond and Brent Caslin, former partners in the Los Angeles office of Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis, have joined Jenner's fourth office, which is located in downtown Los Angeles. Richmond, a trial and appellate lawyer, will serve as managing partner of the Los Angeles office.
Susan Levy, managing partner of Chicago-based Jenner, said that client demand on the West Coast, especially for representation in commercial and intellectual property litigation, drove the firm's interest in recent years to have a presence in Los Angeles.
"We found the right people to spearhead the opening of the office," said Levy. "They're high quality attorneys, which attracted us."
Both join the firm's litigation department and its creative content and intellectual property practices.
Richmond has handled litigation matters involving contract disputes, fraud, insurance, securities, employment and labor relations, intellectual property, construction defect, environmental and toxic tort.
He has tried 23 cases and argued 17 appeals. From 1987 to 1989, Richmond was an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.
Caslin manages commercial and intellectual property disputes in Los Angeles but has worked in Northern California, the state of Washington and Japan. An adjunct professor of law at Pepperdine University School of Law, Caslin specializes in intellectual property and new media distribution, the Uniform Trade Secrets Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
He has handled issues involving television and media distribution contracts, online copyrights, power plants, defense technologies, real estate investments, film financing, fine arts, hedge funds, toxic torts, construction projects, consumer class actions and wage and hour class actions.
In 2003, he handled cross-border legal matters with Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, an international law firm in Tokyo.
Levy declined to give specifics about the potential for growth in the Los Angeles office, but said: "Definitely, we're going to expand the office beyond Rick and Brent."
In addition to Los Angeles and Chicago, Jenner has offices in New York and Washington.
Since September, about a dozen law firms have opened offices in the Los Angeles area. Earlier this month, Boston's Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge opened its first California office in Newport Beach, Calif., and Milwaukee's Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan acquired eight lawyers from Los Angeles-based Atkins & Evans to open an office in Los Angeles.
Other firms that have opened offices in the Los Angeles region so far this year include Philadelphia's Blank Rome, Snell & Wilmer, Haynes and Boone and Lathrop & Gage.
