McGuireWoods to grow to almost 900 lawyers

McGuireWoods LLP will merge the Helms Mullis & Wicker PLLC, a Charlotte-based firm with 145 lawyers, on March 31.

McGuireWoods Chairman Richard Cullen said the firms’ “complementary expertise in capital markets, business litigation and corporate law … is a natural fit that will benefit the clients of both firms.”

Peter J. Covington, chairman and managing member of Helms Mulliss, said Charlotte’s emergence as the country’s second largest financial center and North Carolina’s prominence in technology and life sciences “are driving demand for the sophisticated tax, banking business and regulatory services that our combined firm will be able to provide.”

The expanded firm will have almost 900 lawyers. Here is the firm's press release.

The Charlotte Observer had an analysis of the legal market there today.

Locals fare well on ‘Best Firms for Women’ list

Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers LLC, a consulting outfit, have published for the first time a list of “The Best Law Firms for Women.”

Fifty firms nationally were named, based on an application that covered issues important “to the retention and promotion of women lawyers.” Those topics included workforce profile, benefits and compensation, parental leave, child care, flexibility and retention and advancement of women.

Two of the big firms based in Richmond, Hunton & Williams and McGuireWoods, made the list.

And a number of DC-based firms, some of whom have Virginia offices, were on there as well:
• Arnold & Porter
• Covington & Burling
• Dickstein & Shapiro
• Hogan & Hartson
• Howrey
• Miller & Chevalier Chartered
• Patton Boggs
• Sidley Austin
• WilmerHale

Other firms on the list were based in different locales, but have offices here in the Old Dominion:
• DLA Piper US, New York
• Morrison & Foerster, San Francisco
• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, New York
• Reed Smith, Pittsburgh
• Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, Winston-Salem, NC

McGuireWoods names new managing partner

McGuireWoods, the Richmond-based legal giant, has a new managing partner, Thomas E. Cabaniss (see picture at right).

Cabaniss, a partner in the firm’s Charlotte office and the first managing partner from outside Richmond, succeeds William J. Strickland, who held the post for 11 years. Strickland will return to full-time practice in the firm’s capital markets department.

Cabaniss joined the firm’s Norfolk office from Kaufman & Canoles in 1985, moved to the Tysons Corner office in 1992 and helped establish the Charlotte office in 1998. He was on the executive committee from 1992 to 1998 and chaired the finance committee from 1996 until his election as managing partner.

He concentrates his practice in the areas of real estate and commercial lending, banking and creditors’ rights.

A native of Farmville, Strickland graduated from North Carolina State University in 1972 and from the University of Virginia law school three years later.

“Tom’s in-depth understanding of the firm, his passion for excellence and his devotion to client service will serve us well as we take McGuireWoods to the next level,” said Richard Cullen, the firm’s chairman. It has about 750 lawyers in 15 offices in this country, Europe and Central Asia.