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Meredith Hobbs

Fulton County Daily Report

05-27-2005

April may be the cruelest month, but May has not been kind to Atlanta law firms in Charlotte, N.C.

All seven of Kilpatrick Stockton's business litigators in Charlotte have jumped to Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, where they join a team of 10 litigators in that firm's Charlotte office.

New partners Kurt E. Lindquist II and Fred M. Wood Jr., plus a cadre of five associates, started at Nelson Mullins on Monday. The associates are Virginia T. "Ginger" Daly, C. Marshall Lindsay, Julie M. Robertson Mueller, Evan M. Sauda and Megan K. Watkins.

Wood and Lindquist have worked as a team for 12 years, the last four at Kilpatrick. Before that, they were at McGuireWoods for about five years.

The move leaves Kilpatrick with four environmental and labor and employment litigators in Charlotte and 27 lawyers there overall.

"Lawyers come and go. Some come and go more than others," said Kilpatrick's managing partner, William H. Brewster.

"Our litigation group is among the best in the country, and I believe the very best in North Carolina. These departures do not alter that status one bit," he said in an e-mail. His firm has 35 litigators in North Carolina and 150 firmwide.

Kilpatrick will continue to expand its Charlotte office and its litigation group, Brewster said in the e-mail. "We are in the process of adding to [the litigation] department right now in material ways far more critical than this practice."

The firm also has added to its corporate and real estate finance groups in Charlotte, he said.

Wood said his and Lindquist's group made the move because Nelson Mullins has developed from its Southeastern footprint a national litigation practice that he thinks can be used to expand his team's client base.

Nelson Mullins, which is based in South Carolina, has offices in North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington and Atlanta. Kilpatrick has a similar footprint, with offices in Atlanta, Washington and North Carolina, plus offices in New York and Augusta, Ga., and outposts in London and Stockholm, Sweden.

Lawrence J. Scott, the managing partner of Nelson Mullins' Charlotte office, said the firm has developed a national clientele in products liability and pharmaceutical litigation. Clients who have used the firm for local work have continued to use it on matters that pop up elsewhere, he said, including Wyeth (Madison, N.J.); DuPont (Wilmington, Del.); Pfizer (New York City); and Honda, Georgia-Pacific and Occidental Chemical Corp. (Dallas).

Wood said his team hopes to leverage Nelson Mullins' expertise and client base to do the same thing in commercial litigation. Any company with a national distribution system could be a candidate for his group's services, he said.

Wood declined to name clients and said it was premature to say if any business would follow the group. He is still notifying clients of his move. The team's clients include "all shapes, sizes and industries," he said, including Fortune 100 companies, large privately held companies, and midcap companies in construction, manufacturing, computers and telecom.

Kilpatrick "will not lose any significant client relationships" from the group's departure, said Brewster in his e-mail.

Scott said Nelson Mullins recruited the seven litigators as part of its strategy to expand its North Carolina offices. "This is a great way to do it," he said. The addition of Wood and Lindquist's group brings Nelson Mullins' head count to 22 in Charlotte.

Lindquist was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Also in Charlotte, a five-lawyer corporate group has left Morris, Manning & Martin for Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice.

The group is led by Jeffrey S. Hay and Robert M. Donlon, who will be partners in Womble's corporate and securities practice. Thomas A. Price joins as of counsel, and Brit Young and Brandy D. Berry join as associates.

Donlon was recruited by Morris Manning almost five years ago to start the firm's Charlotte office and served as its managing partner. That office started with four lawyers, he said. Hay, Price and Young joined the group in February 2002, and Berry joined in 2003. Now, after the defection of Donlon's team to Womble, five lawyers and a paralegal remain in Morris Manning's Charlotte office, which had moved to bigger quarters in November to accommodate its growing team.

Morris Manning's managing partner, Robert E. Saudek, said his firm is talking to several lawyers about joining the office and plans to expand it into a full-service operation. The five lawyers still there practice general corporate, wealth planning and real estate law, he said.

"It does not change at all our plans for growing that office. It reduces the size somewhat but does not reduce our future plans to continue with that," he said.

Morris Manning has offices in Atlanta and Washington, plus a two-man real estate outpost in Raleigh-Durham, N.C, and another outpost in Princeton, N.J.

Donlon said Womble's "compelling platform" prompted him to make the move. "Womble ... has significant presence in the I-85 corridor from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta," he said. "It's a model a number of firms have talked about, but Womble is further in executing that business model."

He said it is a coverage area that works well for his team's client base, which tends to be regional and includes technology, manufacturing and distribution companies, as well as financial institutions. Donlon declined to name his team's clients but said they would continue using its services at Womble.

"Our practice is a broad-based middle-market practice with some emerging growth work," he said, citing Womble's Tysons Corner, Va., and Research Triangle Park offices as particularly useful for his team. The firm already has "people on the ground doing what we do" in those areas, he said, which makes it possible to cross-market both geographically and across practice areas.

"We are always looking for talented lawyers with books of business," said G. Michael Barnhill, the managing partner for Womble's Charlotte office, who added that the group's midmarket and emerging growth practice was also a strong area for Womble. "It adds strength to strength," he said.

Womble has 67 lawyers in its Charlotte office. Barnhill said that 19 of those were in the corporate and securities group. Womble started its Charlotte office in 1984.