A group of 10 lawyers and six support staff have joined Morgan, Lewis & Bockius from Bingham McCutchen in Tokyo.
The new joiners are part of a wave of lawyers who joined Morgan Lewis’ offices worldwide from Bingham McCutchen in November.
The 16-person team includes financial regulatory partners Christopher Wells and Tomoko Fuminaga, intellectual property partner Chris Mizumoto, and corporate partners Lisa Valentovish and Tsugumichi Watanabe.
Morgan Lewis announced on Nov. 14 that its partners voted to accept 227 partners from Bingham McCutchen. The announcement came days after Bingham partners voted to approve the deal.
The deal has been widely viewed as a rescue for Bingham, which lost more than 60 partners over the past year, according to recruiting firm Lateral Link. The departures followed a drop revenue of 12 percent to $762 million in 2013 after major cases were settled and practices, such as securities litigation and restructuring, dried up.
Talks between the firms date back to July at least. A tentative agreement was reached in September and the details, including pay, were hammered out in subsequent weeks.
Morgan Lewis is projected to have nearly 2,000 lawyers in 28 offices in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The Philadelphia-headquartered firm, which has a joint enterprise with local firm TMI Associates in Japan, now has 29 lawyers resident in Tokyo.
