Katten Muchin Rosenman has landed a group of four white collar litigators from Hunton & Williams. The group joined Katten on Aug. 19.
The new group includes partners Steven Solow, Whitney Ellerman, and Karl Heisler. Associate Kristine Rembach is also joining Katten from Hunton & Williams. Ellerman and Solow co-chair Katten’s white collar litigation practice. Solow also heads up Katten's environmental litigation practice.
Both Ellerman and Solow have previously served as federal prosecutors.
Solow's career has tacked between academia and serving as a prosecutor. He has previously worked as a member of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, where he scored a bribery conviction against Thomas Gesuale Sr., the businessman behind the notorious 1987 Long Island garbage barge fiasco. Solow later served as chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section where he led a team of 30 prosecutors and oversaw the prosecution of environmental criminal cases nationwide. He has also been a professor at the Pace University School of Law and the Maryland School of Law. He joined Hunton & Williams in 2002.
After stints at Latham & Watkins and Washington's Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler, Ellerman was an assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1996 to 2000. Following his time in the U.S. Attorney's office, he returned to Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler and stayed there until 2006, when he joined Hunton & Williams.
Both men said they were happy at Hunton & Williams, but when Katten came to them offering to have them build a white collar practice in the firm's Washington office, Ellerman said it was a great opportunity he and Solow couldn't turn down.
Solow agreed, saying, "With our prosecution backgrounds, we've always felt that it was important to find the best experts we could regardless of where they were based. Katten as a firm appealed to us because it is very open to that approach and supports the idea of getting the best people available to get the problem solved.”
Andrea Field, managing partner of Hunton & Williams’ Washington office, was not immediately available for comment.
Sometimes change is good. Especially when the change is offering you more money or a better location, you know?
Posted by: Joe | September 09, 2009 at 09:18 PM