US: Alston & Bird has hired three Reed Smith partners

Atlanta-based Alston & Bird has scooped up financial services litigator Michael Agoglia from Morrison & Foerster and a seven-lawyer class action defense team led by Robert Phillips Jr. from Reed Smith to open a San Francisco office and expand its Los Angeles office.

Alston’s managing parter Hays wanted a San Francisco office because it already handles a lot of litigation in state and federal courts there, including class actions, commercial litigation, antitrust and white-collar matters.

“Last year we had 60 matters in Northern California courts—and in 2015 we had 75. So in many ways we’re already there,” Hays said.

Recent big matters for Alston in San Francisco include defending Porsche Cars North America, a Volkswagen subsidiary, in class action litigation over alleged emissions violations that settled last year and representing longtime client Nokia in its renewed patent war with Apple—which started back up in December. The two companies settled a massive earlier round of litigation in 2011 when Apple agreed to pay about $720 million in patent-licensing fees to Nokia.

Full Content: Alston & Bird LLP

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