Paul Irving, managing partner and chief executive at Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP for the past seven years, will step aside to become chairman of the board.
He’s handing the reins to his right-hand man, William Quicksilver.
“Paul and I have worked together as close friends and colleagues for many years,” said Quicksilver. “Our progress and performance reflect Paul’s leadership, and I am honored that I have been chosen to serve as Paul’s successor.”
Irving said he’s staying at his post until January, because the job has “something of a learning curve.” During the transition, Irving will return to his practice while Quicksilver begins directing the $196 million firm, which has 325 lawyers and seven offices on the East and West Coasts.
“It’s been a very fun run,” said Irving, who began practicing law at Manatt 29 years ago and never left. “For me, the most exciting part is over the last seven years. I think our firm is well positioned for an exciting future, although I recognize our profession is fiercely competitive.”
Although Quicksilver seemed like the clear choice after serving as deputy managing partner for more than three years, the firm embarked on a search anyway.
“At the end of the process, the conclusion was Bill was the logical person,” Irving said. “But our firm is still very much a partnership and I think that the fact that we went through this will position Bill even more effectively as a leader and manager.”
Management Victory
Management side attorneys in wage-and-hour disputes scored a victory this week when the Central District of California Western Division declined to certify a class action against Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
The court denied certification to three Wal-Mart assistant managers who sought to be representatives for 2,700 employees with comparable jobs in California.
Wage-and-hour classes have been less frequently certified since they were moved to the federal courts, along with some other mass-tort litigation as a result of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. But the wage-and-hour battlefield fueled in part by cases involving undocumented workers is rife with class action cases.
Employers are anxious to head off the multi-plaintiff cases, which can potentially result in judgments of hundreds of millions of dollars if the company loses in trial. The threat has driven several settlements of tens of millions of dollars, especially following a recent verdict against Wal-Mart for more than $170 million.
Larry DiNardo, an attorney for Chicago’s Jones Day LLP who led the Wal-Mart team in this case called the ruling “a dramatic break.”
“There was too much variation in the way people in this job described how they did their jobs,” he said. “It’s not right to have a representative class action [in this case]. An individual’s work performance has to be considered separately.”
The plaintiffs in this case were claiming that they were unlawfully denied overtime because they were wrongly classified as managers, who are exempt from overtime. A decision on whether the workers were indeed managers would require research into the requirements of each individual’s job and how they filled their workday, the court said. Three individuals in this case could not front a class action case because it would be virtually impossible to examine the way 2,700 employees did their jobs.
Ch-Ch-Changes
The consultancy boom among L.A. law firms is continuing. Ford & Harrison LLP is opening F & H; Solutions Group, to be led by Jerry Glass, a former exec of US Airways Group Inc. The national employment and labor law firm hopes that the human resources consulting subsidiary will complement its law practice. “Ford & Harrison has been in the consultancy industry for years and we have been waiting for the right time to consolidate our talent and expand,” said Managing Partner Lash Harrison. “I am confident that this group will strengthen our position in the market.
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP has started the Milbank Diversity Scholarship Program. The firm founded Practicing Attorneys for Law Students (PALS), providing mentoring and guidance to law students of color in 1984. The scholarship program will provide up to five students annually with salaried summer associate positions in one of the firm’s offices in New York, Los Angeles or Washington, D.C., and a $15,000 scholarship for use during each student’s third year of law school.
Ephraim Starr has rejoined Kirkland & Ellis LLP as partner in the intellectual property and litigation practice groups. He worked for the last seven years as in-house counsel with Honeywell International Inc., most recently as vice president and general counsel of the company’s $4 billion transportation systems division.
Terri Wagner Cammarano has joined Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP from Foley & Lardner LLP. She will be a partner in the tax practice.
Staff reporter Emily Bryson York can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 235, or at
[email protected]
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