Jon Atzen has joined the Los Angeles/Downtown office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as a partner in the firm's Corporate practice group and member of the Emerging Companies practice.  Atzen most recently was a partner at DLA Piper in Los Angeles.  

Atzen has devoted virtually his entire career to working with leading entrepreneurs and innovators, as well as emerging and established companies, primarily in the southern California region.  He focuses his corporate practice on representing emerging growth and established companies, and venture capital and private equity funds, in such technology sectors as life sciences, semiconductors, wireless communications, internet, software and clean/alternative energy technologies.

"Jon has an impressive emerging growth company background, which includes private practice and corporate counsel for both a tech company and a venture capital firm.  His practice dovetails well with our existing emerging growth/venture capital practices throughout California, while broadening our existing corporate practice capabilities in Los Angeles," said Guy N. Halgren, chairman of the firm. 

In addition to private practice, Atzen previously held the positions of Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. 

"I am excited about joining Sheppard Mullin, a top-notch full service firm with a strong corporate practice in Los Angeles and throughout the state," Atzen commented.  "I am impressed with firm management's dedication to growing the Corporate practice group, and excited to be part of a partnership that values teamwork and fosters collegiality."  

In addition to his venture capital and private equity practice, Atzen provides corporate and strategic counsel to publicly-traded companies with respect to securities offerings including initial public offerings, secondary offerings, PIPEs and spin-offs, and reporting and compliance matters under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  He also has significant experience in public and private company mergers and acquisitions.

Atzen received a J.D. from Loyola Law School Los Angeles in 1990 and a B.A. from University of California at Santa Barbara in 1987. 

Sheppard Mullin has 200 attorneys based in its Los Angeles offices.  The firm's Corporate practice group includes 100 attorneys firmwide. 

In April, Kevin Rooney joined the firm's Silicon Valley office as a partner in the Corporate practice group.  Rooney most recently practiced at Hayden Bergman & Rooney in San Francisco, as a name partner.  Previously, Rooney was an attorney with Wilson Sonsini in Palo Alto and Davies Ward Phillips & Vineburg in Toronto.  

About Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Sheppard Mullin is a full service AmLaw 100 firm with 550 attorneys in 11 offices located in the United States and Asia.  Since 1927, companies have turned to Sheppard Mullin to handle corporate and technology matters, high stakes litigation and complex financial transactions.  In the U.S., the firm's clients include more than half of the Fortune 100.  For more information, please visit www.sheppardmullin.com. 

United States Attorney David R. Dugas announced Wednesday he will step down from his position effective April 24.

Dugas said he will join a national private law firm which has offices in Baton Rouge.

He called serving as U.S. attorney "the greatest honor and most rewarding experience" of his professional career.

Dugas was appointed by President George W. Bush and took office October 17, 2001, only five weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The law firm Paul Weiss has hired a prominent Justice Department prosecutor in an effort to build a Washington practice that defends corporations accused of trying to gain business overseas through bribes.

Paul Weiss announced on Friday it had hired Mark F. Mendelsohn, deputy chief of the fraud section in the Justice Department's criminal division, who was the architect of an ambitious program to target foreign bribery.

Mendelsohn was the top catch for Washington law firms looking to continue to participate in the thriving Foreign Corrupt Practice Act business. The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission have been filing aggressive cases in recent years against such companies as Halliburton, BAE Systems and Daimler, reaching settlements in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP is pleased to announce that the firm's chairman of the executive committee, Guy N. Halgren, has been re-elected to a fourth consecutive, three-year term leading the firm.  Halgren was first elected to this management role in 2001.  Halgren is the first Sheppard Mullin chairman to hold this position for four terms.  

"Our partnership is very fortunate to have Guy at the helm for another term.  He's smart, fair and forward-thinking," said Benjamin R. Mulcahy, New York-based partner and member of the executive committee.  "Guy has been instrumental in growing the firm in terms of size, locations, and practice areas, while preserving Sheppard Mullin's tradition of collegiality and entrepreneurship."  

Sheppard Mullin has experienced significant growth in the past nine years.  The number of attorneys is now more than 500, which is more than 70% greater than the firm's attorney headcount in 2001.  During the same time period, the firm has geographically grown from a California firm, to a national firm with locations in New York and Washington, D.C., to an international firm with an office in Shanghai.  The firm currently has a total of eleven offices, having significantly expanded from four locations in 2001.

Comparing 2001 to 2009, gross revenue has climbed from $149 million to $361 million.  Practice area growth has occurred in a number of ways, including the establishment of an institutional entertainment and media practice in 2003, the significant growth of the firm's Intellectual Property practice group in recent years, and the strengthening of signature practices: Antitrust, Corporate, Finance & Bankruptcy, Government Contracts, Labor & Employment, Litigation, Real Estate/Land Use and Tax.  

Additionally, Sheppard Mullin's Business Trial practice group co-chair, Robert S. Beall, has been re-elected as the firm's managing partner for another three-year term.  He has held this firm management position since 2005.  Beall, based in the firm's Orange County office, has also been re-elected to the firm's executive committee for another three-year term. 

"I'm very pleased that Robert has agreed to serve as the firm's managing partner for another term.  Our talents complement each other.  The firm could not have made the tremendous progress it has without Robert's contributions,"  Halgren commented.

Partner Judy V. Davidoff has been elected to the executive committee for a three-year term.  Davidoff, based in the San Francisco office, has served as Real Estate/Land Use practice group co-chair and also as one of the firm's alternative fee czars.

About Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Sheppard Mullin is a full service AmLaw 100 firm with 550 attorneys in 11 offices located in the United States and Asia.  Since 1927, companies have turned to Sheppard Mullin to handle corporate and technology matters, high stakes litigation and complex financial transactions.  In the U.S., the firm's clients include more than half of the Fortune 100.  For more information, please visit www.sheppardmullin.com. 

Susan Merrill, FINRA's former head of enforcement, has landed a new job as a partner at the New York office of the law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP. Susan Merrill, the former head of enforcement at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ( FINRA ), has landed a new job as a partner at the New York office of the law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP.

In March, FINRA announced that Merrill was stepping down at an undetermined date to return to private practice. The agency has yet to name her replacement.

At Bingham, Merrill will join the firm's broker-dealer group and will lead its enforcement practice and advise financial industry clients on regulatory and securities enforcement issues.

A battle is intensifying in the Senate over the appeals court nomination of Goodwin Liu, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley whom some Democrats consider a potential nominee one day to the Supreme Court.

Democrats vowed Wednesday to press ahead with plans for an April 16 Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A day earlier, the GOP demanded a delay and suggested that Liu's nomination might be in jeopardy because he had not provided enough information to the panel.

Activists on both the left and right view Liu's nomination as a practice run for the next Supreme Court vacancy, which could come as soon as this year if Justice John Paul Stevens retires.

On Tuesday, Liu sent 117 items to the committee, a "supplement" to an earlier questionnaire he filled out about his record, including articles he wrote and events in which he participated, but did not include in his original submission.

The committee's seven Republicans -- led by ranking member Jeff Sessions (Ala.) -- responded with a scathing letter to panel Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).