Wake Up Call: Slaughter and May Cuts Partner Promotions in Half

Welcome to Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call, a daily rundown of the top news for lawyers, law firms, and in-house counsel.

• Slaughter and May announced its smallest partner promotion round in seven years, elevating three lawyers, half the six promoted in 2025. The firm promoted five lawyers to partner in 2024, 10 in 2023, eight in 2022, five in 2021, and eight in 2020. (FN London)
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed the key attorney behind the controversial Hope Florida Medicaid agreement to serve as a circuit judge in Tallahassee. Andrew Sheeran, general counsel for the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration since 2023, was the chief legal architect behind the settlement with Medicaid company Centene at the heart of the Hope Florida saga that’s now under a criminal investigation. (Miami Herald)
• Health tech company GuardDog Telehealth admitted in court that its core business involved collecting patients’ digital medical records from multiple health systems and supplying them to law firms for potential litigation use. The lawsuit, brought by Epic Systems, revealed that thousands of records were accessed without patient consent, with law firms emerging as key end users of the data. (The Washington Post)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Hildy Sastre joined DLA Piper as a product liability partner.
• Nathalie Sadler joined Paul Weiss as a partner in its investment funds group in London.
• David Shaw joined Latham & Watkins as a partner in its intellectual property litigation practice in Washington. He joins from Desmarais.
• Peter Tucci joined McDermott Will & Schulte as a partner in its private client practice in Los Angeles. He joins from Proskauer.
• Katie Chung joined Baker Botts as a partner in its litigation department in Singapore.
• Carlos Jimenez joined K&L Gates as a partner in its labor, employment, and workplace safety practice in Los Angeles. He joins from Protection Law Group.
• Stewart Mesher and Darlene Ghavimi joined Stinson as partners in its IP and technology practice division.
• Lucian Murley joined Akerman as a partner in its bankruptcy and reorganization practice group. He joins from Saul Ewing.
• John Wittenzellner joined Boies Schiller Flexner as a partner in its patent litigation practice.