Troutman picks up five partners in hiring spree
By Meredith Hobbs, Staff Reporter
TROUTMAN SANDERS has landed five more new partners—two finance partners from King & Spalding’s New York and Atlanta offices and a partner each from Alston & Bird, Morris Manning & Martin and Hunton & Williams. All are corporate lawyers and bring clients, according to TROUTMAN’s managing partner, Robert W. Webb Jr.
The announcement comes just two weeks after the firm welcomed Allen S. C. Willingham as a partner and Daryll Love as of counsel in Atlanta as well as three Kaye Scholer partners who brought their international trade team to the firm’s Washington office.
Webb said the firm’s hiring spree was prompted by “the explosion of corporate deal work.”
“We’ve been doing the most deals we’ve ever done in the last six months,” he said, adding that the activity has centered in its New York, Atlanta and Richmond, Va., offices.
Jeffery R. Banish joins TROUTMAN’s employee benefits and compensation group from Hunton & Williams. He is an ERISA practitioner with “a high level of expertise and experience in executive compensation,” Webb said. “Some of our clients really need it.”
Saba Ashraf joins the firm’s tax practice from Alston & Bird. She advises corporations and partnerships on tax planning for complex business transactions. “Given all the deal work that we’re doing, we need her,” said Webb.
Larry W. Schackelford joins the firm’s securities and corporate governance group from Moris Manning & Martin. His securities practice has a focus in community banking, which Webb said will mesh well with the firm’s community banking practice run by Thomas O. Powell.
In New York, the firm has lured tax lawyer Philip H. Spector and corporate lawyer Craig M. Kline from King & Spalding to its structured finance group. They represent financial institutions in asset-based leasing and financing transactions involving equipment and facilities such as ships and power plants. Webb said the two are working on some cutting-edge deals in the renewable energy sector where tax credits and incentives come into play.
TROUTMAN voted the five in as partners at the same April partnership meeting where it approved those announced two weeks ago—adding nine new partners in one fell swoop.
That brings the firm’s total partner count to 293. Of those, almost 90 have been added since the beginning of 2005. That year, the firm gained 35 partners with the 90-plus lawyer New York office that it acquired from Jenkens & Gilchrist—plus 21 additional lateral partners. It added another 19 partners in 2006 and has gained 12 to date this year.