Willkie plants a trial practice in Dallas, and an antitrust boutique keeps raiding the government

Willkie Farr & Gallagher launched its Texas litigation practice in Dallas, hiring a three lawyer trial team out of the Dallas boutique Hilgers PLLC, two of them partners there. The firm opened its Dallas office in 2024 and has been building toward a trial bench ever since. The antitrust boutique Axinn LLP has hired roughly a half dozen former Justice Department antitrust prosecutors over the past two years, and managing partner Jeny Maier says the firm intends to keep pulling lawyers out of DOJ and other agencies as its route to competing with much larger players. Linklaters added three more litigators out of Paul Weiss in New York, a month after hiring two partners from there. On the buyer side, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton's litigation co chair says the firm intends to grow that practice on both coasts.

On the business side, Jackson Walker will pay $15 million to settle the Justice Department bankruptcy watchdog's suit over an undisclosed relationship between a former firm lawyer and a former top bankruptcy judge.