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Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr will initiate its first management transition since the merger of Washington, D.C.-based Wilmer Cutler and Boston-based Hale and Dorr established the 1,000 lawyer firm in 2004.
Wilmer announced partners Susan Murley and Robert Novick will assume the roles of co-managing partners on January 1, 2012. Murley chairs the firm’s transactional practice; Novick chairs the firm’s regulatory and government affairs practice.
Murley and Novick succeed partners William Perlstein and William Lee. The two current co-managing partners orchestrated the 2004 merger.
As with Perlstein and Lee, the next leaders come from different sides of the firm and will be based in separate offices. Boston-based Murley was a partner with predecessor firm Hale and Dorr; Washington, D.C.-based Novick had joined Wilmer Cutler in 2001.
In an article at amlawdaily.com, Lee was quoted as saying: “At the time of the merger, having co-managing partners was necessary to make the merger work. But we have learned if you have co-leaders working together effectively there are many benefits to the decision making process.”
When Lee and Perlstein were elected to an additional three-year term as co-managing partners in 2008, the pair said it would be their last as firm leaders. Lee was quoted as syaing: “We thought it was important for the law firm to have new leadership for a new generation,” Lee says. “I’m 60. The firm is more about people who are 30 than it is about me. Perlstein also turned 60 this year.
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Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP has twelve offices across the USA, Europe and Asia.
