Inadmissible

Sidley Austin opened a Houston office on Valentine’s Day that will be staffed initially by seven partners coming from seven firms. The Houston office is the 18th for Sidley, which was founded in Chicago. The firm also has an office in Dallas. The new Sidley partners in Houston and their former firms are Kenneth Anderson, coming from Locke Lord; Mark Glasser , from Baker Botts; J. Mark Metts , from Jones Day ; Glenn Pinkerton , from Vinson & Elkins; Sergio Pozzerle, from McDermott Will & Emery; James L. Rice III , from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; and Steven Selsberg , from Mayer Brown. Chicago partner Thomas Cole, chairman of Sidley’s executive committee, says the firm needs an office in Houston to execute a strategic plan to have offices in major global commercial, financial and regulatory centers. “It has the added advantage of being a critical energy center. As we’ve looked at our mix of clients over time, a portfolio manager would say we are underweighted in energy,” says Cole. He says Sidley has a strong energy regulatory practice in Washington, D.C.; lawyers in Palo Alto, Calif., work on alternative-energy projects; and capital markets lawyers in New York City do work for energy clients. The Houston team will expand the firm’s energy capabilities. Also, Houston is a gateway to Latin America, he says. Cole says the firm wanted to open in Houston with a “critical mass” of lawyers in different practice areas. “We are expecting an instant success,” he says, noting the lawyers “know each other, respect each other.” Anderson does banking and finance; Glasser and Selsberg do litigation; Metts does mergers and acquisitions, securities and corporate governance; Pinkerton and Pozzerle do M&A and project finance; and Rice does energy transactions. Cole says Sidley, which has about 1,700 attorneys firmwide, expects to add more lawyers in Houston, including a number of associates, and may reach 20 lawyers by the end of the year. He says Sidley clients in Texas include Commercial Metals Co. of Irving. Selsberg, whose clients include Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, says he’s moving to Sidley because the firm will provide him with a “great opportunity” to expand his client list globally. The other six lawyers did not return a telephone call each seeking comment.

New U.S. Magistrate Judge

Mark P. Lane, currently senior litigation counsel for the U.S. Attorney’s Office Austin Division, will become a U.S. magistrate judge for the U.S. district courts in the Western District’s Austin Division. The post became vacant in October 2011 when U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Pitman became the U.S. attorney for the Western District. “The primary reason I want to do it is twofold: I wanted the opportunity to do something new. I’ve been a prosecutor basically since I got out of law school. The second thing is, I hope to give a perspective that is sympathetic to the plight of the trial lawyer,” says Lane, explaining that he has been a trial lawyer and he respects how hard they work. Lane will deal with nondispositive motions in civil cases, conduct criminal arraignments, sentence criminal defendants convicted of misdemeanors and hear misdemeanor criminal trials, among other things, says U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel . Yeakel says 62 people applied for the position. A merit selection committee of civil, criminal, government and private-practice lawyers screened the applicants and recommended five candidates for the job. The Western District’s U.S. district judges voted unanimously via email to hire Lane, Yeakel says. “I thought he was best for the position because of his federal experience, his knowledge of the processes around here. His background in the U.S. Attorney’s Office makes him uniquely qualified to handle our growing criminal docket,” Yeakel says. He adds that he hopes Lane will start before the end of March, after a background check by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Lane earned an undergraduate degree in finance from The University of Texas at Austin in 1984 and his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center in 1987.

Open and Shut