Law firm McCarter & English has plucked six attorneys from rival firm Robinson & Cole to expand its Hartford practice. A seventh was brought aboard to expand McCarter’s New York office.
The six — Richard L. Green, Mitchell L. Fishberg, Richard F. Vitarelli, Elizabeth M. Smith, Karen L. Culton and Catherine Moreton Gray — joined McCarter as partners, the firm said Monday. Attorney Evan M. Rosing, who previously worked in Robinson’s New York office, joined McCarter’s practice there.Â
Green, Fishberg and Vitarelli chaired their respective practice groups at Robinson.
McCarter’s Hartford Managing Partner Eric E. Grondahl boasted Monday the latest hirings, along with three other local lawyers recruited recently, immediately boost its practice profiles, including labor, employment counseling and litigation, corporate transactions, information technology and intellectual property, outsourcing, securities litigation, commercial litigation and class actions.
Before the raid, Robinson & Cole was Hartford’s largest law firm with some 139 local attorneys, of which 65 are partners, according to the Hartford Bsuiness Journal’s 2010 Book of Lists.
McCarter ranked No. 11, with 37 Hartford attorneys and 17 local partners. McCarter says it now has 45 attorneys in Hartford, its third largest office behind Boston and New York.
In 2008, Robinson & Cole added more than 30 attorneys, including nine in Hartford, from Thelen LLP, a major San Francisco firm that announced it was dissolving at the time.
Thelen had nearly 40 attorneys based in Hartford in 2008, making it the city’s 11th largest law practice at the time.
