Womble Bond Dickinson has hired a five-lawyer financial services litigation team across Boston and New York from K&L Gates, in a move the firm said accelerated the build-out of its wider financial services platform.
Partners Jeffrey Patterson, Ryan Tosi and Phoebe Winder have moved over in Boston, joined by a pair of associates in New York. The team acts for clients including banks and mortgage and credit card servicers as national coordinating counsel and litigation counsel in class actions, government inquiries and consumer cases across the US.
“Womble has been building its financial services platform for some time now, adding litigation, regulatory and compliance capability so that financial institutions can bring us their most consequential matters,” said Lisa Rushton, business litigation co-practice group leader. “This team accelerates that. They bring nationally recognised financial services litigation practices and relationships with major institutions that go back decades, and they join a business litigation group that is growing at the same pace as the sector it serves.”
Patterson is a trial and appellate litigator who has represented corporations for three decades. He was a partner at Nelson Mullins before joining K&L Gates in 2015 and brings a commercial practice covering monopolisation and restraint-of-trade claims under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, pricing disputes under the Robinson-Patman Act and false advertising, grey market and counterfeit matters.
Tosi defends financial institutions and consumer credit companies in class actions, consumer bankruptcy matters and commercial disputes. He has spent the past 22 years at K&L Gates, and also counsels asset managers, pension funds and institutional investors in international securities fraud litigation and arbitration.
Winder serves as national outside counsel to some of the largest mortgage and credit card servicers in the US and represents financial institutions in loan-level and class action consumer finance litigation. She practised at K&L Gates for more than 30 years.
The team's hire follows Womble recruiting a 36-strong consumer financial services team from McGlinchey Stafford at the start of this year ahead of the latter's closure, in a move that saw it expand into Albany and Cleveland.
And in March, the firm added a financial services team from Burr & Forman as part of opening its first Florida office in Jacksonville. Led by partners Michael Waskiewicz and Armando Nozzolillo, the team advises lenders, financial institutions and other creditors in consumer and commercial matters, handling loan workouts, creditor-side litigation, judgment enforcement and asset recovery.
The latest team to join Womble represents the second group to exit K&L Gates' Boston office this year, after three disputes partners decamped to Reed Smith's recently launched office in the city in April alongside two associates.
K&L Gates confirmed in July it was cutting 10% of staff roles across the firm – equivalent to around 180 jobs – in a move the Pittsburgh-based firm said would streamline its support structure.
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