Local law firms have been hiring attorneys away from Irell & Manella LLP’s Orange County and Los Angeles offices in the wake of the recent move by John Hueston and Brian Hennigan to form their own firm.
Hueston Hennigan LLP, which has offices in Newport Beach and Los Angeles, now has about 30 former Irell lawyers.
Costa Mesa-based Greenberg Gross LLP recently tapped trial lawyer Evan Borges as a partner as it aims to boost its talent base. Borges is the first hired partner for the firm; cofounders Alan Greenberg and Wayne Gross have been sole partners since its inception in April 2013. Michael McMahon, a former Irell associate, also recently joined Greenberg Gross.
Irvine-based Payne and Fears LLP recently hired former Irell associate Timothy Heggem for its insurance coverage practice.
Other former Irell lawyers have gone to work for the public sector.
Feifei Jiang and Kevin Kiley, for instance, have joined the U.S. District Court as a judicial law clerk and the California Department of Justice as deputy attorney general, respectively.
Irell remains among the largest law offices in Orange County. It ranked No. 11 on the Business Journal’s January list of law firms here by OC-based attorney headcount. Irell’s Newport Beach office had 47 attorneys as of the end of 2014; its website now shows 33. Its firmwide number of lawyers was 192 as of year-end, according to the list. Its website listing shows 150.
The recent departures of attorneys “obviously [make] us slightly smaller, and we have made some space adjustments,” said Michael Ermer, managing partner of Irell’s Newport Beach office.
“But it was a relatively self-contained group that spun off to start their own firm,” Ermer said of Hueston Hennigan LLP. “It’s business as usual for the lawyers here. We attract among the brightest and most creative lawyers in the country. The ability to start a new firm from our platform is in part a testament to the strength of our firm.”
