Robert Cooper. Courtesy photo Robert Cooper. Courtesy photo

King & Spalding has hired another prominent partner from Boies Schiller Flexner, which announced at the same time that it had hired a pair of bankruptcy lawyers in London and New York.

Boies Schiller Washington, D.C., administrative partner and executive committee member Bob Cooper is joining King & Spalding in D.C., making him the 20th Boies Schiller partner, and third executive committee member, to join King & Spalding since April, the firm confirmed on Monday.

Meanwhile, Boies Schiller said it has added two bankruptcy partners: New York-based Lawrence Brandman, most recently the former head of derivatives bankruptcy strategy at Lehman Brothers Holdings, as well as London-based Neil Pigott, who held several leadership positions at financial institutions, including BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley. Pigott was counsel at Boies Schiller from 2017 to 2018.

Cooper, the new hire at King & Spalding, does not yet have a start date, although Andy Bayman, the firm's head of trial and global disputes, said he will be starting "very soon."

Bayman said Cooper's shared client base, experience in leadership and his practice strength in government investigations, with a particular focus in antitrust work, made him a particularly coveted pickup.

"Without going into specific clients, he has a number of the same clients that we do. That was obviously attractive to us," Bayman said. "He's also active in health care, airlines, banking,  practices in some of the industry sectors where we're heavily involved in."

In addition to work with various federal agencies, Cooper has represented clients on the plaintiff and defense side, including American Express and Altitude Sports & Entertainment, according to federal court records. Damien Marshall, who left for King & Spalding in June, also represents American Express.

Cooper was one of the administrative partners of Boies Schiller's Washington, D.C., office, which recently saw the departures of Karen Dunn and Bill Isaacson to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Following Dunn and Isaacson's departure in June, Cooper was elevated to the firm's executive committee. Sources close to the firm have cast Cooper as one of the D.C. office's biggest rainmakers.

In April, King & Spalding picked up 15 of Boies Schiller's California-based partners, including executive committee member David Willingham and San Francisco administrative partner Quyen Ta. In June, a four-partner Boies Schiller team in New York led by Marshall also left to King & Spalding.

Cooper's departure comes as the firm has seen more than a quarter of its partnership leave for other firms since December. In an interview, Natasha Harrison and Nicholas Gravante said that most of the departures have been expected or wanted as the firm undergoes a restructuring effort and modernization.

But the firm had wanted Cooper to stay, adding that losing well-regarded partners like him was an unfortunate side effect of the restructuring. "We knew there were people like Bob, who we did not want to lose, who would leave," Gravante said, adding that the firm expects more departures throughout the year.

Bankruptcy practice plans

Even as Boies Schiller continues to see partner exits, the firm is focused on building out certain practices, including restructuring, part of the motivation behind Brandman and Pigott's hiring.

Harrison identified bankruptcy and restructuring work as a key area of growth for the firm's restructuring, alongside intellectual property, international arbitration and traditional Boies Schiller bread-and-butter practices such as contingency cases and white-collar defense.

"We have the capacity there in New York already," Harrison said, "and we're anticipating a flood of COVID restructuring and bankruptcy work."

Brandman and Pigott's hiring comes on top of two more additions Boies Schiller has made recently: Lauren Bell, the senior counsel to the head of the Justice Department's criminal division, joined in June while John Kucera, a federal prosecutor in California, will join in August.

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