Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has acquired the Democratic boutique lobbying shop Parven Pomper Strategies, adding six lobbyists to Akin’s Washington office.
In a related move firm has also picked up Democratic Leadership Council founder Al From, whose firm, The From Group, has a strategic relation ship with Parven Pomper Strategies. From will be a senior adviser at Akin.
The team from Parven Pomper Strategies and From will officially join Akin in mid-April.
The Parven Pomper team includes Scott Parven and Brian Pomper, who join as partners; Alixandria Lapp, who is a senior policy adviser; and Francine Friedman Grabowski, who is a senior policy counsel. Roger Murry and Sarah Crnkovich will join Akin as policy analysts.
The Parven Pomper Strategies team lobbies on behalf of FedEx, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Chevron, Pfizer, Time Warner Cable Inc., and Visa.
Before founding PPS in 2006, Parven was vice president and counsel at Aetna, where he oversaw international public policy. He has also served as vice president for public policy at AOL Time Warner. Prior to going in-house, Parven served as chair of international public policy at Mayer Brown.
Pomper, who was also a co-counder of Parven Pomper Strategies, served as chief international trade counsel for Chairman Max Baucus on the Senate Finance Committee, advising the committee on all aspects of its international trade and economic agenda. Before going into government service, Pomper was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
From joins Akin from The From Company. He is not listed in the Senate lobbying disclosure database.
The news was first reported by the National Journal.
In an interview, Parven said that joining Akin allows his team to "sit at the big-boy table" because Akin has a much larger platform than Parven Pomper Strategies. "Because of our size, we couldn't be involved in every major policy issue out there. Joining Akin allows us to do that."
Akin currently has about 45 professionals in its public policy practice.
Joel Jankowsky, a senior executive partner at Akin, said that the firm wanted to make the pick ups because it would add "an experienced team of young, energetic public policy professionals with a great deal of expertise." He declined to comment the cost of the deal.
"This was such a good combination that it seemed like a natural fit," Jankowsky said.
Great, so now we have massive lobbying groups? That will help things a lot.
Posted by: Joseph Marchelewski | March 26, 2010 at 02:13 PM