Top row(l-r): David K. Willingham, Quyen Ta, Leigh M. Nathanson, Andrew Z. Michaelson and Amy J. Mauser, bottom row(l-r): Philip J. Iovieno, Kathleen R. Hartnett, Robert M. Cooper, Christopher G. Caldwell and Eric J. Brenner of Boies Schiller Flexner. Courtesy photos.

Boies Schiller Flexner has installed new office leaders across the country in five locations, a further step in the firm's long-term leadership transition.

New administrative partners have taken up posts in some of its largest offices, including those in Manhattan; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Oakland, California; and Albany, New York. While the appointments were rolled out internally earlier in the year, the firm confirmed them in the last week.

Last year, Boies Schiller created a four-member management committee that assumed the administrative duties of name partners David Boies and Jonathan Schiller. The new appointments are not directly related to that effort, and the firm has always held administrative partners in each office, said management committee member Damien Marshall, but the appointments are a further step in the “continuing transition of the firm's management and leadership.”

The appointments are also recognition of the increasing role of the local offices and the firm's growth, Marshall said. The role of the administrative partner has grown as the firm has expanded, he said.

The appointments include: Andrew Michaelson, as administrative partner in New York City, joined by deputy administrative partners for the office, Eric Brenner and Leigh Nathanson; Kathleen Hartnett and Quyen Ta, as joint administrative partners to lead the Oakland office; David Willingham, to help lead the Los Angeles office along with Chris Caldwell; Robert Cooper, as joint administrative partner of the Washington, D.C., office, alongside Amy Mauser; and Phil Iovieno, as a deputy administrative partner in Albany.

The administrative partners—similar to what other firms describe as office managing partners—generally run the office, including handling recruiting, expenses, budgeting, attorney training and encouraging pro bono work. They report to the firm's executive committee.

“We try to put a lot of autonomy toward the individual offices, to create a flatter, more horizontal management structure,” Marshall said, adding the appointments reflect the “depth of the leadership across the firm.”

The administrative partners, meanwhile, still have their own practice. In some cases, the firm is adding deputy administration partners.

“The reality is that it's a big job,” Marshall said. “Providing support for these people and providing shared responsibilities allows us to continue that tradition of having strong practicing lawyers in leadership positions.”

In the firm's Manhattan office, the largest by head count with about 80 lawyers, Michaelson became the administrative partner after previously serving as deputy to Marshall when he was in the role. Michaelson focuses on white-collar defense, government investigations and civil litigation.

Nathanson, one of the Manhattan office deputies, works on commercial litigation, including antitrust, securities and commodities litigation. The other deputy administrative partner, Brenner, has litigated commercial cases involving antitrust, securities, partnership and intellectual property disputes.

In Albany, where the firm has 12 attorneys, Iovieno, as a deputy administrative partner, works with current administrative partner George Carpinello. Iovieno represents plaintiffs and defendants in antitrust and other complex litigation matters.

Willingham, who heads Boies Schiller's West Coast global investigations and white-collar defense practice, now leads the firm's Los Angeles office along with Caldwell, who assumed the role following the firm's acquisition of boutique Caldwell Leslie & Proctor in 2017. About 30 lawyers are based in the Los Angeles office.

In the 17-attorney Oakland office, Hartnett, who spent five years in the Obama Administration at the White House and the Justice Department, works on civil litigation and investigations and provides strategic counsel related to litigation and public policy. For her part, Ta focuses on consumer class action defense, intellectual property and other high-stakes litigation.

The new Oakland leaders take over from for Steve Holtzman, who will continue practicing at the firm.

In an interview, Hartnett said her goal in the position will be to continue the firm's vision of having unified and collaborative California offices in Southern and Northern California. (Boies Schiller also has offices in Palo Alto and Santa Monica.) And with a diverse set of leaders in Oakland—Ta is Vietnamese American and Hartnett is gay—“it sends a strong” message to clients and others “that we think it's very important to be representative of the communities we are in,” Hartnett said.

In Washington, D.C., where the firm has about 53 attorneys, Cooper became joint administrative partner alongside Mauser, who assumed the role in 2015. Cooper focuses on complex commercial litigation and government investigations.

Cooper told ALM that his goal is to continue to grow the firm's head count in Washington and its business in regulatory enforcement, investigations and crisis management, in addition to the firm's traditional litigation practices. He also wants to keep up the collaboration among offices. Some of the firm's most well-known clients and cases “are frequently serviced across several offices,” Cooper said, citing, for instance, Delta Air Lines and Uber matters.

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