Morgan Lewis Hires Dentons Int'l Trade Duo in DC

Kenneth Nunnenkamp and Giovanna Cinelli of Morgan Lewis. (Photo:
Gittings Photography)

Two partners who opened a Tysons, Virginia, office for Dentons two years ago have left for Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

Giovanna Cinelli and Kenneth Nunnenkamp join Morgan Lewis as partners, with Cinelli tapped to co-lead the firm’s international trade, national security and economic sanctions practice. Morgan Lewis announced their move on Monday.

The Philadelphia-founded firm does not have an office in Northern Virginia, so Cinelli and Nunnenkamp will be based out of Washington, D.C.

Cinelli previously led the export controls and national security practice at Dentons. The pair specialize in export controls, national security and economic sanctions investigations and compliance, including for the international weapons trade. They often have matters before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. While Cinelli is an exports expert, Nunnenkamp is a former Marine and JAG officer.

“Their exceptional legal skills, formidable reputations, and military backgrounds deepen our ability to assist clients confronting the rapid evolution of trade policies and security issues,” Morgan Lewis chairwoman Jami McKeon said in a statement. Cinelli and Nunnenkamp could not be reached on Monday.

Before Dentons, the pair worked at Jones Day and Patton Boggs. In 2015, when they lateraled to Dentons from Jones Day, Dentons said they would complement an existing aerospace-industry and defense clientele in Northern Virginia. The remaining group built a subspecialization in unmanned aircrafts as drone regulation has grown.

Dentons, which recently pruned its partnership and lost others to the lateral market, now counts eight lawyers and a nonlawyer drone-policy specialist in Tysons. That group includes IP partner Eric Sophir, and two partners, Morgan Campbell and Mark Dombroff, who historically defended airlines after catastrophes.

Morgan Lewis’ investment in D.C. comes as the firm’s profile in Washington intensifies with its representation of President Donald Trump‘s businesses on tax and ethics questions.

The firm drastically expanded its D.C. presence in 2014 when it merged with Bingham McCutchen. Morgan Lewis now has the fourth-largest law office in Washington, with more than 330 lawyers.

Meanwhile, Dentons’ had an expansion announcement of its own on Monday. The global firm said it was looking westward to partner with Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, a midsized litigation firm, in Hawaii. Dentons said the affiliation, which it did not describe as a merger and in which the smaller firm appears not to plan to change its name, would help Asian clients doing business in the U.S. and U.S. clients seeking to enter the Japanese and Korean markets.

Dentons’ U.S. CEO Mike McNamara said in a statement that more than 50 percent of the firm’s top clients operate in Hawaii.

Alston Hunt has 50 lawyers in Honolulu on Oahu and Hilo on Hawaii.

“We couldn’t be more enthusiastic about our enhanced relationship with Dentons, the world’s leading law firm,” Paul Alston, the Hawaiian firm founder, said in the statement from Dentons.

None of the 500 largest law firms in the U.S. has an office in Hawaii.