Musical Chairs: Ex-PoGo Partners Go
Back in November, Bryan Cave acquired Powell Goldstein. At the time of the merger, it looked like Bryan Cave was throwing PoGo a lifeline, potentially saving the venerable southern firm from dissolution.
But months after the merger partners are still leaving legacy Powell Goldstein. The Indiana firm Barnes & Thornburg is opening up an Atlanta office with two former PoGo partners. Indy.com reports:
Stuart C. Johnson and Jason A. Bernstein, previously partners in the Atlanta office of Bryan Cave Powell Goldstein, will join the firm to open the Atlanta office. Johnson becomes a partner in the firm’s Business Department, and Bernstein becomes a partner in the Intellectual Property Department. Both will join the firm’s new office located in Buckhead at the Atlanta Financial Center.
After the jump, a tipster reports on the significance of these defections.
At least one tipster feels that this is particularly bad news for what is left of old Powell Goldstein:
Of particular significance, one of the focuses of the new branch will be a health care practice. PoGo once had a significant health care practice that was a cash cow for the firm. Several partner defections have left that practice a shell of its former self and the new Barnes & Thornburg office could signify the continued deterioration of the practice.
Of course, everything is coming up roses for Barnes & Thornburg. According to the firm’s press release, they are even hiring:
The firm will aggressively recruit lateral attorneys in all practice areas, with the intention of building a full-service office in Atlanta, similar to its approach in Chicago where the firm has built a full-service office with more than 85 attorneys and other legal professionals.
One firm’s loss is another one’s gain.
Atlanta arm is latest add-on for Indy law firm [Indy.com]
Barnes & Thornburg LLP Expands to Atlanta [Barnes & Thornburg]
Earlier: Bryan Cave & Powell Goldstein ‘Officially’ Announce Merger (Or Acquisition Or … Something)
(64) Comments
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First!!!!!! In yer face!
Yay Indianapolis. Salt of the earth people :)
Nice. It looks like Bernstein gets around even more than Nick Setty (currently head of Fish in Atl) - which is saying a lot.
Hey! Are they hiring?
QUINN REMAINS hopeful that someone will start a PoGo shtick
Way to go Barnes!
THANK GOD ELIE IS KEEPING US IN THE LOOP ON BARNES & THORNBURG, LLP
4, if your reading comp is that bad, don't bother applying, you idiot.
I am not gay, I am Mormon!
i've never heard of any of these firms. one sounds like a toy, another like a bookstore, and the third could be a title of a comic strip.
luckily i won't have to waste my bids on these firms for oci in a few months.
-nervous T-10 1L
soon to be nervous 1L sa
My mother used to love the Thornbirds miniseries.
I used to love 11's mother.
10 - I'm glad that you know it all as a 1L. Why not just set up shop and start practicing now?
I love mothers that love.
I love 11, 12 and 14.
- Lover Mother
I love how a 1L chimes in with the fact that he/she has never heard of these firms. What, have you been involved in this profession for about 5 minutes? Thanks for the insight.
12 nailed it.
After your no-offer, Nervous, you will be happy to work anywhere that puts up with your stupidity.
Not that many Michigan 1Ls have s.a. positions: we are looking for you.
13, 16: how do you like bryan cave? i didn't mean to knock your firm, it's just that they aren't one of the firms i'm looking at for oci.
-nervous T-10 1L
soon to be nervous 1L sa
I love Bryan's Cave of Love.
18, I hope you are able to find and out him.
nervoustop101L, this is 13. Your arrogance continues to impress. I don't work in Bryan's Cave, never have, never will. I do, however, work in biglaw. So please, send me your resume so I can blackball your ass when I review your resume for the summer program. Puhpuhpleeze.
I think this is a fake Nervous T.
I wish nervous guy would just go die in a cave. You suck, buddy.
Very quiet week so far.
big layoffs in DC today
Gotta admit, it's pretty cool how Milbank kept their Promise. Maybe that should be a headline.
Nervous, you have no frame of reference here. You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know what's going on. Oh, and you are wrong too. -16
big layoffs in DC today
big layoffs in DC today
big layoffs in DC today
We can be called car "RAMROD".
Large Farva
15 - I love you too.
Love, 12.
17 -
If by "it", you mean 11's mother, then you are correct.
lol, you guys take everything so seriously. i guess they weren't joking when they said lawyers had no sense of humor.
just go on thinking i'm a big asshole in real life, i'm sure you'll find out who i am eventually...
*giggles at commenters who take what they read on a legal tabloid comment section seriously*
-nervous T-10 1L
soon to be nervous 1L sa
I love 15's 3500 sq ft wife when he is not at home.
12/15/33 -- just get a room and get it over with, already. It shouldn't take more than a couple minutes.
@34 - I am going to kill your first born spawn.
Sometimes a sheep just needs to be pushed through a fence. Why are you looking at me like that?
Uh Oh - "i'm sure you'll find out who i am eventually".
Nervous is going to RULE THE WORLD. Beware!
LMFAO.
22 is looking to "blackball" someone's "ass" during the interview process. Sounds like GULC student paradise!
-GW 1L
Gotta love when Indianapolis and other mid-markets get knocked around on ATL. We'll take our salary which is higher than NYC (when adjusted by any COLA calculation) in comparison and where we aren't cowering under our desks for fear of the imminent termination any day.
Hey 40 - enough. GULC is an excellent choice for someone that didn't get in a good school. Let it go.
Do they GULC sheep in Indiana, too?
34 is a fake Nervous 1L. If you check the old comments from mid-February, the original Nervous 1L had a different name - "nervous T10 1L". But the original got outed and stopped posting out of fear for his job prospect.
Current "nervoustop101L" is fake. Don't take his flame bait.
It would be GREAT to work in Indianapolis. Clients love getting tttaken to Cheesecake Factory.
I still love 3500 sq ft mothers.
Cheesecake factory is all the way up at Keystone and not worth the drive from downtown. Everyone in Indy knows the place to take clients is St. Elmo's.
27- Milbank broke the Promise last week when it, in effect, fired all of its incoming associates. No way these kids will ever start at the firm.
And I would have thought the place to take Indy clients was Kash's Red Lobsttter.
27- Milbank broke the Promise last week when it, in effect, fired all of its incoming associates. No way these kids will ever start at the firm.
True True, 49.
The "Cave" blows, especially in St. Louis. Does anyone actually bill any hours in that office?
If your in St. Louis, go to Armstrong Teasdale.
Go cards...
How could you not title this article "Ex PoGo Partners A-Go-Go"
52 - You are at AT because you don't know the difference between "your" and "you're".
Gotta love the inevitable snobby comments about the lack of sophistication in the midwest.
My company does a lot of work in Indy. The B&T lawyers we've worked with seem happy, secure, and well-paid. The restaurants downtown are pretty good. They lack the trendy short syllable names of NY or Chicago eateries (Per Se, Nobu, Home, Tru, N9ne), but they also lack the snotty clientele.
Hooray for a firm choosing now to expand to Atlanta. Lots of good prospects in Atlanta for a well-run firm, so long as it doesn't engage in the horrendously idiotic and suicidal antics discussed elsewhere on this site (search "Sutherland" and "Alston" and "Spalding" for a sampling).
56 - so right.
Imagine GOOD people who happen to be GREAT lawyers who decide to start a principled law firm in Atlanta right now. That would be a firm that prospective colleagues would want to join and that prospective clients would want to support, especially those who are fed up with the Sutherland, Alston+Bird, and King&Spalding types of firms that not only are distasteful but in some measure reflect poorly on the client for picking or continuing to use it for the client's legal service needs....
56,57 - Totally agree. I think that compensation may be an issue, though, when even firms like Ballard Spahr in Atlanta are paying 'full Fish' (Fish peak associate salaries in 2007).
58 - but what principled good people (lawyers or staff) remaining at Sutherland or Alston can read about their firms at this site and go home feeling good about where they work?
I imagine many of them would gladly take a pay cut to work at a place they aren't ashamed of ... and that they have reasonable hopes of thinking will exist five years from now.
10 - Go fuck yourself. If I ever figure out who you are, I'm going to kick your ass.
Indianapolis is not a bad place to live; you could do worse. But Barnes is the TTT of the Indy "big three" and conducts stealth layoffs.
61 is absolutely right....
61 is absolutely right....
More defections from old Pogo happening, including a former Pogo Board of Partners member and member of the integration committee. Also, former Board of Partner or executive committee member from DC office is leaving -- About 10+partners/counsel/associates in the last couple of weeks left for new firms