After a stint as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Secretary of Education, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan may return to the practice of law.
Riordan, who officially stepped down as education secretary on June 30, said he is considering rejoining his former colleagues at Riordan & McKinzie, which was acquired in 2003 by Bingham McCutchen LLP.
“I’m talking to them now,” Riordan said. “I have great respect for the firm and would be proud to be part of them. It’s a firm that’s 10 times bigger and obviously changed, but the top people are the people I worked with.”
Riordan now says he might return to the firm because he “loves the practice of law.” But it will depend on how much time he spends on other projects, mostly involving education.
Last year, former Gov. Pete Wilson joined the firm’s Los Angeles-based consulting group, which helps companies with government relations. Also joining as partners are David Robbins and Stephen Alexander, two longtime partners in the Los Angeles office of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson. Both represented former Walt Disney Co. directors Stanley Gold and Roy Disney in their suits against the entertainment company.
Rick Welch, managing partner of the Los Angeles office of Bingham McCutchen, declined to confirm or deny that Riordan is in talks with the firm’s local partners, saying only that he would comment “when there is something to talk about or announce.”
Rocky Shuffle
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s right-hand man, Terree Bowers, has landed at Howrey LLP.
Bowers left last month amid a management reshuffle at the City Attorney’s Office following Delgadillo’s re-election. He joins four other local partners at Howrey’s white-collar criminal practice group.
Bowers left the City Attorney’s Office along with two other top attorneys: Luis Li, head of the criminal division, and Josh Perttula, who oversaw the city’s airport, harbor and water and power departments.
Months earlier, several managers resigned from the office’s civil division, communications department, real estate and economic development group, government relations and municipal counsel branch.
City Attorney spokesman Jonathan Diamond said the departures did not reflect a management reshuffling.
“There were a couple of folks in senior positions who announced their intentions to leave at the end of Rocky’s first term, and Terree was chief among them,” he said. “They all had their own personal reasons for moving on, but the transition to the second term seemed like a natural point for them to do that.”
As former interim U.S. attorney in Los Angeles from 1992 to 1994, Bowers managed the federal government’s local prosecutors after serving in the No. 2 position as chief assistant U.S. attorney. He was assistant U.S. attorney in the criminal division during the 1980s.
During his tenure at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Bowers handled several asset forfeiture and high-profile cases, including the Rodney King civil rights trial and the Charles Keating fraud case.
From 1994 to 1998, Bowers was U.S. representative in The Hague, Netherlands, at the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Bowers joined the City Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles after Delgadillo’s election in 2001. He could not be reached for comment.
Akin, Again
A few months after two key partners departed from its local office, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP has lost two more partners.
Peter Haviland and Rhonda Trotter, both partners in Akin’s litigation department, have joined Kaye Scholer, where they worked before joining the Washington-based firm.
Haviland, who represents entertainment and music industry clients in intellectual property, defamation and non-competition agreements, has joined Kaye Scholer as a partner in its litigation department. Trotter joins the department of counsel, focusing on cases involving trademark infringement and labor disputes.
Akin Gump, which had 139 lawyers in its local office in 2002, now has fewer than 80.
Comings & Goings
DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary U.S. LLP has hired a new co-chairman of its real estate fund practice, to be based in Los Angeles. Sanford Presant is the former national director of Ernst & Young LLP’s real estate fund services Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP has hired a new partner in its 41-member bankruptcy practice group. Richard Pugh was most recently with Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP Reed Smith LLP has hired a new partner in its litigation department. Andrew Paris, who represents corporations in complex contract, intellectual property and antitrust litigation, was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP Los Angeles-based Paul Hastings represented China COSCO Holdings Co. Ltd. in its recent $1.2 billion IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. China COSCO is a container shipping company controlled by government-run China Ocean Shipping Co., which has space at the Port of Los Angeles.
*Staff reporter Amanda Bronstad can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 225, or at
[email protected]
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