Akin’s Leader Picks Show Focus on Big Law’s ‘High-Rate Areas’

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a firm founded in Texas and with one of the largest lobbying practices in Washington, is looking elsewhere as it seeks to compete with top law firms.

New York restructuring partner Abid Qureshi and London dealmaker Daniel Walsh will take over as co-leaders of the firm next year, Akin announced Tuesday. They replace Kim Koopersmith, the litigator who has steered the firm for more than a decade.

The firm is plucking its next crop of leaders from two high-revenue producing practices—bankruptcy and corporate transactions—as many of its competitors ramp up investments in those areas.

“It’s either get with the party or potentially get left behind,” said Jeffrey Lowe, a Washington legal recruiter. “But I think Akin has been pretty good at navigating it.”

Akin’s unique history has seen the firm’s center of power shift from Texas to Washington and New York, its largest office and Koopersmith’s base of operations.

Tapping new leaders in New York and London could signal that the firm is “prioritizing growth and retaining strong people and teams in high-rate areas beyond Washington,” where it is headquartered, said Kent Zimmermann, a legal industry consultant for Zeughauser Group.

Akin has brought on roughly 13 lateral partners in the first half of 2024, including investment management lawyers James Munsell from Sidley and Ira Kustin from Paul Hastings along with private credit duo Scott Colton and Bill Brady from Paul Hastings. All four of those lawyers are based in New York.

The firm has also lost a number of corporate lawyers this year, especially in key areas like mergers and acquisitions and private equity.

Koopersmith, Qureshi and Walsh were not available for comment, according to the firm.

Capital in the Brand

Akin was founded in Dallas in 1945 by a pair of Texas lawyers and made its name early as a litigation shop. It continues to have a large presence in the state and has recently focused on private equity work in the energy industry, said Robert Kinney, a Texas-based legal recruiter.

“They have a really strong, old brand in Texas,” Kinney said. “There’s a lot of capital in that.”

The firm later became a major player in Washington, D.C., where name partner Robert Strauss launched an office after being elected Democratic National Committee chairman in 1972. Akin has built one of the largest lobbying shops in Washington, advising major corporations and advocacy groups.

The firm brought in a record $13.8 million in federal lobbying revenue in the first quarter of 2024, Akin said earlier this year. It was one of several Big Law firms lobbying Washington on the $14.1 billion sale of US Steel to Japan’s largest steelmaker Nippon Steel.

Open AI hired Akin late last year as lawmakers and regulators turned their attention to artificial intelligence. Ed Pagano, a former Senate liaison in the Obama administration, and Reggie Babin, a former chief counsel for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), lead the team advising the company.

The firm made a splash in London in 2014, picking up a 25-lawyer team from now-defunct Bingham McCutchen. It added Milbank restructuring partner Jacqueline Ingram earlier this year, but it has also seen several partners decamp to Paul Hastings, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Ashurst.

Walsh is a US-trained lawyer who has spent nearly three decades at Akin, working on a wide range of deals. He is lesser known than the UK-lawyers leading the local operations of prominent US firms, like Kirkland & Ellis, Paul Weiss and Latham & Watkins, observers said.

The rapid rise of US law firms has forced leading UK players to overhaul their pay systems and seek new footholds stateside. The recent transatlantic merger that produced A&O Shearman has firms on both sides of the pond thinking about how to scale up.

“This screams merger,” a UK recruiter said of Akin’s move to make Walsh a co-managing partner. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preserve relationships, said Walsh would serve in an important role as the face of the firm in London if Akin is looking to grow its presence there.

Qureshi, a longtime Akin partner and financial restructuring litigator, will be its top US partner when the duo replaces Koopersmith next year. He leads Akin’s New York office and has been a go-to lawyer for unsecured creditors’ committees and bondholder groups in large bankruptcies for the past decade. Qureshi is currently advising unsecured creditors in former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s recent bankruptcy.

Though it has added lateral partners in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, the firm has also seen some notable partner departures in its US corporate lawyer ranks.

David D’Urso, the head of Akin’s US private equity and mergers and acquisitions practice, and Elazar Guttman jumped to Sidley Austin in January. A month later, a trio of corporate partners left to join Paul Hastings in Houston. Akin’s US oil and gas leader Stephen Boone also left for Sidley in May while Houston-based M&A partner Thomas McCaffrey jumped to Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

‘Heavier Load’

Akin’s decision to replace Koopersmith with two leaders in waiting reflects a trend among Big Law firms.

“In a growing number of firms, whether formally or informally, more than one person is carrying the load of leadership as the load has gotten a lot heavier,” Zimmermann said.

Vinson & Elkins in 2022 replaced its longtime chair and managing partner duo with a 4-partner leadership team, led by its chair Keith Fullenweider. Kenneth Rosh became Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobsen’s new chair late last year alongside new managing partner and vice chair roles for Steven Epstein, co-head of Fried Frank’s M&A practice, and Scott Luftglass, co-head of the securities and shareholder litigation practice. The trio succeed David Greenwald who led the New-York founded firm since 2014.

Some leaders might give up their practices to focus solely on running the firm, while others might continue to do the client work that made them power players in the firm to begin with. Qureshi and Walsh will continue to maintain their practices to “stay close to the firm’s clients and market,” Akin said Tuesday.

“If you look at the revenue that these firms have generated 20 years ago versus today, it’s very common for them to be multi-billion dollar companies,” Lowe said. “The days of the charismatic sole leader are behind us.”