Simpson Thacher opens Dallas with an Akin lift-out, and Goodwin plants a flag in San Diego

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett opened a new Dallas office by lifting a three-partner hybrid capital team out of Akin Gump, and installed one of the arrivals as co-managing partner. Goodwin Procter opened a San Diego office of its own, poaching a life sciences patents partner from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati to lead it. On the rest of the lateral wire, Cooley added a cyber, data and privacy partner in New York from Hunton Andrews Kurth, and Crowell & Moring named a former Google lawyer to lead a new congressional investigations group in Washington.

On the business side, a federal judge disqualified Quinn Emanuel from defending a company in a copyright case nearing trial, after CoStar Group argued the firm had a conflict.