Wake Up Call: Baker McKenzie Elects Managing Partner in Germany

Welcome to Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call, a daily rundown of the top news for lawyers, law firms, and in-house counsel.

• Baker McKenzie elected employment law partner Alexander Wolff, head of its Berlin employment team, to a three-year term as the firm’s managing partner for Germany starting July 1. He’s taking over from information technology partner Matthias Scholz, who’s been Germany managing partner for six years. (BakerMcKenzie.com)
• Kirkland & Ellis advised Thoma Bravo portfolio company Adenza, a financial software maker, on its proposed $10.5 billion sale to Nasdaq Inc. (Kirkland.com) Wachtell Lipton advised Nasdaq. (Nasdaq.com)
• Cooley LLP advised artificial intelligence video creation company Synthesia on its $90 million Series C fundraise, which valued the company at $1 billion. Partner Aaron Archer, co-head of London venture capital and emerging companies practice, led for Cooley. The round was led by venture capital firm Accel with investment from NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm, and participation from existing investors. (Businesswire)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Big US law firms are planning to continue expanding in London, a lateral market they find to be easier than New York’s. (Financial News)
• Dallas-founded litigation boutique Brewer Attys & Counselors raised its starting pay for associates to $250,000, well above the Big Law standard. The firm picked up Locke Lord litigation partner Matthew Davis to help lead its recruiting and hiring in the city. (Texas Lawyer)
• A federal judiciary committee upheld a finding that a former US magistrate judge likely created an abusive workplace environment. (National Law Journal)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Baker McKenzie poached a team of three Latin-America focused capital markets and finance lawyers from Paul Hastings in New York for its transactional practice. The attorneys include Michael Fitzgerald, who was chair of Paul Hastings Latin America practice, Arturo Carrillo, and Joy Gallup. Paul Hastings of counsel Pedro Reyes is also joining the practice as partner along with several associates. (BakerMcKenzie.com)
• Reed Smith added two partners to its global corporate group, getting capital markets attorney Anthony Marsico from Dorsey & Whitney in New York and private equity attorney Timothy Rupp from Morgan Lewis in Orange County, California. (Reed Smith)
• Greenberg Traurig hired insurance regulatory attorneys Cynthia Borrelli, based in New York and New Jersey, and Michael J. Morris, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Jersey, as shareholders. They arrive from Bressler Amery & Ross, where Borelli led the insurance law practice. (GTLaw.com)
• Vedder Price grabbed former federal prosecutor and Securities and Exchange Commission senior trial counsel Adam Schwartz as shareholder in its government investigations and white collar defense group, the second hire for its new Miami office in about a week. Schwartz arrives recently from litigation and transactional firm Homer Bonner Jacobs Ortiz. (VedderPrice.com)
• Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati recruited former French data privacy regulator Yann Padova as partner in its European privacy and cybersecurity practice in Brussels. He joins from Baker McKenzie, where he was partner and leader of the France data protection practice. (WSGR.com)
• Proskauer Rose brought in Warner Bros. Discovery vice president and privacy team head Leslie Shanklin as partner in Washington in its corporate department and co-head of its privacy & cybersecurity group. A former Holland & Knight intellectual property and media partner, Shanklin also joins Proskauer’s technology, media & telecommunications group. (Proskauer.com)
• Axiom hired former MasterCard privacy and data protection counsel Ashlin Quirk as general counsel. She was recently GC, secretary and data privacy officer at market research services provider Dynata. (Axiom)
• MRB Group, Rochester, New York-based engineering and architecture planning firm, hired former Eastman Kodak chief privacy officer and senior counsel Julianne Oehlbeck, recently vice president legal & associate general counsel at yogurt company Chobani, to be its new chief legal officer and GC. (MRBGroup.com)