The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has hired John Wood, previously co-chair of Hughes Hubbard & Reed's anti-corruption and internal investigations practice group, as chief legal officer and general counsel, effective June 4.

• Michael Weinsier has joined Pryor Cashman as partner and co-head of the firm's private equity practice. He joins the firm from Troutman Sanders.

• Stroock has added Evan Hudson as a partner in the firm's real estate finance practice. He was formerly co-chair of the real estate capital markets group at Duval & Stachenfeld.

• Mehtap Cevher Conti has joined Arnold & Porter as a partner in the firm's corporate and finance practice group. Before joining, she was in private practice.

• Elaine Zacharakis has joined Garfunkel Wild as a partner in the firm's health care information and technology group. She joins after maintaining her own health, technology and privacy law firm for 14 years.

• Bracewell has added partners Allan Taffet, Keith Blackman, Joshua Klein, and associate Russell Gallaro to the firm's litigation practice. The four-person team was previously at Duval & Stachenfeld, where Taffet chaired the litigation department.

• Michael Birnbaum has joined Morrison & Foerster's securities litigation, enforcement and white-collar defense practice group as a partner. He joins after spending the last 11 years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, most recently as senior trial counsel.

• Shearman & Sterling has added Meredith Williams-Range as its chief knowledge & client value officer. She was previously with Baker Donelson in Memphis, TN, where she served as chief knowledge management officer and knowledge management attorney.

Legal operations executive and business strategist Rina Sproat has joined Kleinberg Kaplan as its chief operating officer. She is the first to hold this position on a full-time basis in the firm's 47-year history. Most recently, she was chief operating officer and chief of strategic implementation at Baker & McKenzie in Tokyo.