Although global law firm Sidley Austin has been aggressively expanding in Southern California in recent months, mid-market player Buchalter Nemer has lured one of Sidley's most senior restructuring partners in Los Angeles.
Joel Samuels (pictured) joins Buchalter as a shareholder. Samuels advises creditors, creditors’ committees, and debtors in insolvencies and restructurings, often in the real estate sector. His clients have included Wells Fargo, Credit Suisse, Fortress Investment Group, Exelon Corporation, Radian Asset Assurance, and other lenders and debtors. Samuels provided counsel to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as lender to Olympia & York Developments Limited in the latter’s insolvency, which involved proceedings in New York as well as Canada. In another high-profile matter, Samuels advised Main Line Pictures in an $8.9 million judgment claim against actress Kim Basinger in her personal service company’s Chapter 11 proceedings.
The luring of Samuels from Sidley, where he began practicing law in 1985 and made partner in 1992, runs counter to a trend of steady growth by Sidley in Southern California. In recent months, Sidley has lured numerous partners to its L.A. office and its fledgling Century City office, which opened in May. Samuels’s departure comes just days after Sidley scored a coup with the hiring of noted corporate and entertainment industry lawyer Richard Petretti from Morgan Lewis & Bockius. In June, Sidley lured real estate and structured finance partner Joel Rothstein from Paul Hastings.
Buchalter has been growing in its own right through strategic hires in California. In May, Lee Parish, a former general counsel of CTCB Bank, moved to Buchalter’s Orange County office as a partner in the firm’s banking and finance practice. Parish advises clients in the real estate sector on lending, leasing, distressed loans assets, and construction. The firm also brought aboard Scott Schoffel, a former executive vice president and general counsel of Integrated Health Care Holdings, as special counsel in its Orange County health care practice. On May 1, Buchalter announced the opening of an office in St. Helena/Napa Valley and the hiring of James Rose as a shareholder based there. Rose previously was name partner of a legal boutique advising wineries, wine brokers, and vineyard managers.
Samuels holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an A.B. from Princeton University.