Gibson Dunn hires Morgan Lewis partner

Gibson Dunn hires Morgan Lewis partner

Law firm responds to the growing demand for contentious advice and representation

One of the top 20 US firms Gibson Dunn & Crutcher has boosted its newly formed tax controversy and litigation group in Washington DC. It has hired three partners from Morgan Lewis & Brockius.

While Morgan Lewis' partner Sanford Stark joins the Los Angeles firm as co-chairman, Saul Mezei and Terrell Ussing join as partners. The team joined the firm in response to the growing demand for contentious advice and representation purpose.

Welcoming the trio, Barbara Becker, Gibson Dunn's chairperson and managing partner, said, "Our clients turn to us for guidance on a range of complex domestic and international tax issues. With this group, we shall be able to meet the growing demand in these sectors."

She added that the new group's experience in handling tax matters would help it to "realize our long-standing objective of establishing a market-leading global tax controversy practice."

The entry of the trio happened after six months of the firm's hiring of former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) chief counsel Mike Desmond, who joined the firm to strengthen its tax capabilities.

The firm's new tax controversy group now includes Desmond, the new Morgan Lewis trio and Los Angeles-based senior partner Kevin Rosen. The team will focus on advising clients on all stages of tax controversy, from audit and administrative resolution through trial court proceedings and judicial appeals.

Stark, who spent over seven years as a Morgan Lewis partner in DC, served as a trial attorney in the tax division of the US Department of Justice before joining McKee Nelson (later Bingham McCutchen), as a partner in 2000. He remained with the firm until it merged with Morgan Lewis in 2014. He focuses his practice on domestic and international tax issues with a significant emphasis on cross-border transfer pricing.

Stark mentioned, "Partnering with Desmond and other colleagues across the firm presents a unique and exciting opportunity to expand our offering to clients."

Meanwhile, Mezei and Ussing also bring in significant experience handling transfer-pricing matters. The duo overlapped with Stark during their respective five and one-year tenures at Bingham McCutchen, prior to the merger with Morgan Lewis.

Following the merger, while Mezei was promoted to partner, Ussing worked as an associate before being promoted to partner in 2020. Before joining Bingham McCutchen, Mezei also worked as an attorney-advisor to Judge Robert Wherry Jr. in the US tax court between 2007 and 2009.

Outside their work in private practice, the trio all serve as adjunct professors in the graduate tax programme of Georgetown University's law school, where they focus on teaching transfer pricing and tax controversy law.

Gibson Dunn's wider international tax group currently boasts of 54 lawyers, including 27 partners across its offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.