Photo: Shutterstock

Epstein Becker & Green’s recently announced alliance with Deloitte Legal for employment law and workplace services has brought a new partner to the firm, with Proskauer Rose international labor and employment co-chair Erika Collins opting to take her practice there.

Collins, who is based in New York, joined Epstein Becker on Wednesday, five and a half years after moving to Proskauer from Paul Hastings. She said that she reached out to David Garland, who chairs the firm’s national employment, labor and workforce management steering committee, shortly after seeing the news of the tie-up with Deloitte on LinkedIn.

“I sent him an email, said ‘This looks exciting,’ and we got together for lunch after that,” said Collins, who had known Garland for two decades.

Collins started out her own career 20 years ago in Silicon Valley, helping dot-coms open up oversees offices. She helps U.S.-based multinational companies make sense of international labor and employment laws and has observed increasing complexity in that period, along with the trend of businesses looking to build global diversity programs.

“One of the things that attracted me to Epstein Becker once the alliance was announced is that siloed services—consulting, risk management or any other professional service—are not going to make any sense in the future,” she said.

She’d also been watching Deloitte for years, recognizing the organization has been at the vanguard of global diversity, process management and artificial intelligence.

“For them to choose Epstein Becker Green speaks volumes about EBG’s reputation,” she said.

Garland said that he anticipates the practice bringing on more new faces as a result of the arrangement with Deloitte. When they announced the nonexclusive alliance in May, leaders from both organizations explained that Deloitte would point clients toward Epstein Becker for U.S. legal work on employment and workforce-related matters, while Epstein Becker will point its clients with international employment concerns to Deloitte.

“The announcement of the alliance has created a good deal of excitement in the employment bar,” he said. “We fully expect future growth.”

Luis Fernando Guerra, the global managing director for Deloitte Legal, also praised Collins’s arrival.

“We were thrilled to hear that Erika has joined EBG and will collaborate with Deloitte Legal on complex international and cross-border employment and human resources matters,” he said in a statement.

Collins’ former firm called her a “valued and popular colleague.”

“We understand and support her decision, expect to remain in close touch and wish her much success in her new endeavor,” a spokesperson for Proskauer Rose said.

Read More

Big Law’s Trojan Horse: Are the Big Four Preparing an Invasion?

Deloitte Expands US Legal Ambitions With Epstein Becker Alliance

The Big Four’s Big Year: Expansion, Immigration and Evaluation

PwC Forms Alliance With U.S. Firm, Furthering Big Four’s Ambitions in Law