Linklaters' latest

Linklaters LLP continues to expand its New York office this month by hiring M&A lawyer Daniel Dufner Jr. from White & Case LLP. Dufner is the fourth lateral that Linklaters has brought in since October, but he probably won't be the last.

"We expect to continue to build the practice over the next six months to two years, both through additional strategic hires and through internal promotions," says Lawrence Byrne, co-head of the U.K. firm's New York office and the head of its U.S. litigation practice.

Byrne himself left White & Case for Linklaters in 2006. The firm had 35 lawyers in New York in 2003 before it brought on a team of litigators from Shearman & Sterling LLP. Since then, Linklaters has grown to 170 lawyers here, split about evenly among litigators, finance lawyers and specialists. In October, Linklaters hired Alberto Luzárraga, previously an M&A partner at Shearman & Sterling; and Jeffrey Schmidt, a former partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and a former director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission.

"They're continuing to build a strong team in New York," says legal recruiter Alisa Levin. "In the past, they always wanted to do groups, but I think they realize that in this economy the best way to continue penetrating the U.S. market is with star individual hires and leveraging off of their international platform."

Linklaters has looked to hire prominent New York M&A lawyers for three years in order to cross-sell the expertise to its client base of large multinationals. They found such a lawyer in Dufner, 39, who last month represented WellPoint Inc. on its $4.7 billion agreement to sell its NextRx pharmacy benefits management units. As an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Dufner helped represent Anthem Inc. on its 2004 merger with Wellpoint Health Networks Inc. When he was passed over for partner at S&C, Dufner joined White & Case and landed WellPoint as a client. He represents Dish Network Corp., the former Echostar Communications Corp.

Dufner is the second key loss for White & Case in six months. M&A partner Timothy Goodell, who was on the partnership committee, became Hess Corp.'s general counsel in December.

In another big New York hire for Linklaters, last month the firm brought on Lewis Steinberg, a tax partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP for 20 years before joining UBS in 2005 as a banker. Steinberg says that Yash Rupal, a tax partner in Linklaters' London office, first called him a few years ago to talk about potential U.S. hires. Rupal called again last spring to ask Steinberg whether he'd consider moving to Link-laters, and with the banking crisis taking its toll on UBS, Steinberg said yes.

"I thought at age 55 there was a very good possibility that I would go back and become a lawyer again," says Steinberg, 52. But, he adds, he didn't want to do the same things he had done for 20 years. "I wanted an opportunity to help build a U.S. business," he explains. Steinberg will have that chance as the co-head of Linklaters' U.S. practice with Byrne.

"This is as close as one can get in the legal profession to what I was doing at UBS," Steinberg says.