On the heels of making several lateral hires in Dallas, DLA Piper picked up a team of six Jackson Walker institutional investor partners in Austin last week.

The team, which includes David Parrish, Nicole Brennig, Elise Green, Philip Svahn, Sara Stinnett and Richard Cardillo, represents foreign and domestic pension plans, endowments, insurance companies, private market solutions providers, family office and other financial institutions. Their work involves helping the investors with alternative investments.

Parrish expects some associates to join them at DLA Piper.

The group moved to DLA Piper, he said, because of the firm's international reach. Some of the partners' clients are based overseas, and some of their U.S. clients make investments internationally. He declined to identify these clients.

David Parrish and Nicole Brennig

“It was clear to us we needed to provide [clients] more than what we were able to provide [at Jackson Walker],” he said. “Our clients are international. We represent foreign institutional investors and U.S. institutional investors on a global basis.”

DLA Piper has offices in more than 40 countries; Jackson Walker has seven offices in Texas.

The attorneys making the move have practiced together as a team since 2012, according to Brennig.

John Guaragna, DLA Piper's managing partner in Austin, said in a statement that the addition of the institutional investment team is an “important strategic component of our ongoing regional expansion.”

DLA Piper's lateral hiring in Austin comes on the heels of waves of hiring in Dallas this year. The firm hired employment partners Marc Katz and Isabel Crosby and litigator Rob Hoffman from Andrews Kurth, corporate partner Steven Bartz from Thompson & Knight, and litigators C. Michael Moore and Matthew Nickel from Dentons' Dallas office.

When asked to comment on the departures, Wade Cooper, managing partner of Jackson Walker, said the firm has international capability and a clear vision.

“Several years ago, we set out to build a Texas firm that has an international reach. That vision is not for everyone although it has attracted, and continues to attract, a large number of very productive laterals who share our thoughts about what a firm should be in the 21st Century,” he said. “We wish David Parrish and his group the very best in their new endeavor and enjoyed practicing with them these past several years.”