Memorial services are planned for this week for Barry Phillips, who first joined the firm that became Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton in 1954 and was later its chairman. Phillips died Monday at the age of 82.

According to the firm, the family will receive friends at H.M. Patterson Spring Hill Chapel, on Wednesday, January 25th, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.  Funeral services will be held at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church on Thursday, January 26th, at 3 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP Scholarship Fund, in honor of Barry Phillips at the University of Georgia Law School, 120 Herty Dr, Athens, Ga. 30602, in care of the Development Office. Donations may also be made to the American Heart Association P.O. Box 840692 Dallas, Texas 75284-0692 or www.heart.org.

Online condolences may be made at H.M. Patterson & Son-Spring Hill Chapel.

A full obituary released by the firm is below: Read more »

For the 13th year in a row, Fortune magazine has listed Atlanta-based Alston & Bird among the 100 best companies to work for.

The firm came in 24th place, tops among law firms.  Among special categories, the firm was 3rd in salary for the “most common job title”–$201,233 for associates. It was 21st in the pay  common hourly employees–$71,211 for legal secretaries. It also got a nod for an unusual perk–”learn espanol.”

“When the success of a business is predicated on the service its employees provide, it is paramount to create a workplace that rewards employee dedication – personally, professionally and financially,” said firm managing partner, Richard R. Hays, in a statement.

Update: here is a story on all four law firms that made the list, from our affiliate, the Blog of Legal Times.

Chicago legal recruiter Mike Evers doesn’t mince words in his hiring forecast for 2012. Evers’ advice for unemployed attorneys is to broaden their search into smaller markets–and consider changing careers. “The market as a whole will not digest the enormous oversupply of litigators and generalists,” he warns.

There are plenty of “highly pedigreed generalists” seeking work, he says, but in-house legal departments want subject-matter specialists. Evers says in-house jobs are opening up only when someone leaves or retires. “Most of the demand will be about plugging specific holes.”

Labor and employment firm Fisher & Phillips has opened offices in Boston and Memphis, for a total of 27 flags on the map nationwide.

“We go where our clients want us and both Memphis and Boston are important markets to our clients,” said the firm’s chairman, Roger K. Quillen, in a statement.

In Boston the firm recruited Joseph W. Ambash from Greenberg Traurig. Ambash represented New Process Steel in a 2010 Supreme Court case ruling that the National Labor Relations Board cannot function without three members. He also represented Brown University in an NLRB case which held that graduate students are not employees under the National Labor Relations Act. He has served as chief negotiator in collective bargaining agreements in the public and private sectors, according to the firm.

Jeff Weintraub will lead Fisher & Phillips’ Memphis office and joined from Weintraub Law, which was formed in 1959. Craig Cowart also joins the firm’s new Memphis office from Kiesewetter Wise Kaplan Prather. Weintraub represents employers in union matters as well as employment disputes. Cowart handles employment litigation and administrative proceedings.

Arnall Golden Gregory has opened a Miami outpost devoted to the logistics industry. The firm recruited four lawyers from Miami’s Hyman, Spector & Mars—including name partner Andrew R. Spector—to launch the office. This is AGG’s second office outside of Atlanta; the firm opened a four-lawyer Washington office last January focused on privacy law.

“Arnall Golden Gregory has been working with Andrew Spector and his team for almost twenty years on matters involving the logistics industry. Combining his practice with ours was a natural evolution of the relationship,” said AGG’s managing partner, Glenn Hendrix, in a statement.

“The logistics industry has become increasingly complex and the combination of our practices will allow us to better meet the needs of the industry,” said Hendrix.

The other lawyers joining AGG from Hyman Spector are: Marc A. Rubin, Robert M. Borak and Beverly Greenberg.

Another Atlanta firm, Weissman Nowack Curry & Wilco, snagged two Hyman Spector lawyers in August to launch its own Miami office, handling community association law, foreclosures and other real estate-related matters.

A former staff attorney for personal injury firm Joel & Associates has been sentenced to 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to stealing $145,000 from the firm. Wayne Williams, 50, who was the managing attorney for the firm between 2004 and 2007, pleaded guilty to intercepting about 24 checks and depositing them into his personal account, according to a release from the office of Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard.

A review of the firm’s books led to the discovery of the thefts, according to the DA’s office.

On Monday, Williams pleaded guilty to 21 counts of theft by taking and 19 counts of first-degree forgery; Fulton County Magistrate Judge Walter Lovett sentenced him to 20 years, with 18 months to serve and the balance on probation. He must also make restitution, surrender his law license and perform 500 hours of community service.

Williams’ attorney, Fulton County Public Defender Bert G. Roughton III, refused to discuss the case. Joel & Associates principal David C. Joel was unavailable.

Williams was prosecuted by Chief Senior District Attorney Bradley R. Malkin of the DA’s White Collar Crime Unit. He was assisted by DA investigator Natalie Brunner and Atlanta Police Det. Joseph Siwemuke.

The Washingtonian magazine asks why Penn State football coach Joe Paterno chose King & Spalding’s Wick Sollers to represent him in the fallout from the school’s sex abuse scandal, pointing out that Sollers generally defends corporate executives on the quiet. Sollers “is not among the circle of elite Washington white-collar defenders whom celebrities, politicians, and other high-profile folks usually turn to in this city when they’re in trouble,” says the magazine.

Sollers is the managing partner of King & Spalding’s Washington office and has chaired the firm’s special matters and government investigations practice. His firm bio says his defense work includes accounting fraud cases, criminal environmental, health care and FDA matters and internal corporate investigations. He also represented former President George H.W. Bush in the Iran-Contra affair.

Paterno was fired Wednesday along with Penn State’s president, after Pennsylvania prosecutors charged former Penn State defensive coach Jerry Sandusky with sex abuse of teenage boys and two university officials with covering up his alleged crimes.

Sollers was in the news himself last spring after former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement quit King & Spalding because the firm refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act for his client, the U.S. House of Representatives. Sollers, who’d recruited Clement to the firm, said in a statement amidst fallout from the departure that it was “reasonable” for Clement to think King & Spalding would accept the DOMA matter even though the firm’s standard client/matter review process was not followed, calling the episode an “unfortunate misunderstanding with a friend.”

The National Association of Women Lawyers’ annual survey on how women lawyers fare in Am Law200 firms shows they are making little progress in advancing up the ranks of BigLaw.

Women make up 47 percent of first and second year associates but only 15 percent of equity partners. The survey said the percentage of female equity partners has not changed in 20 years. And 80 percent of firms’ “fixed-income equity partners” are women, who contribute capital but do not share in profits. Firms reported that women make up only 16 percent of partners credited with at least $500,000 of business, which correlates to the percentage of female equity partners.

Few women run Am Law 200 law firms. The survey said firms’ governance committees have a median number of 10 partners, but 77 percent of firms reported two or fewer women on their governance committees. Only five Am Law 200 firms have a female managing partner—the same percentage as in 2006, the first year the survey was conducted. But 95 percent of firms said they have a women’s initiative in place.

NAWL sent the survey to the 200 Am Law firms, and 121 responded.

The DeKalb County district attorney has decided to appeal a recent state Court of Appeals decision allowing an Alston & Bird lawyer to represent a former county schools superintendent against criminal charges.

District Attorney Robert D. James filed a notice of intent to petition the state Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari on Nov. 3. However, no brief has been filed yet with the high court.

James has not released a statement saying why his office is choosing to appeal, though he did say last week that his office was considering it.

The appellate decision handed down on Oct. 28 stated that DeKalb Superior Judge Cynthia J. Becker wrongly disqualified Alston & Bird partner Michael L. Brown last fall from representing former Superintendent Crawford Lewis based on prosecutor’s plans to call a witness employed by a client of the firm on unrelated matters.

Brown was unavailable for comment on the appeal.

Lewis is charged with illegally steering contracts to vendors and accepting bribes related to the school district’s construction program, as well as using his office credit card for personal purchases.

Former county school district chief operating officer Patricia Reid and two others also are charged with corruption in that case. The defendants have denied the charges.

After many years in Atlanta, patent litigator Nick Setty has moved to San Francisco to co-chair Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton’s 70-lawyer intellectual property group. Setty opened an Atlanta office for national IP firm Fish & Richardson in 2006, which he led until taking the post at Sheppard Mullin. He practiced at Jones Day before opening the Fish & Richardson office and has an undergraduate and law degree from Emory University.

“I am extremely excited about joining Sheppard Mullin’s global platform. It’s clear to me that the firm is on the rise. I am incredibly impressed with its strategic plan and collegial and entrepreneurial culture,” Setty said in a statement from the firm. “I look forward to helping Sheppard Mullin strengthen and build its growing reputation as a top tier IP practice.”

Sheppard Mullin recruited the other co-chair of its IP group, Stephen S. Korniczky, from Paul Hastings last year.