Brooks Pierce Expands Office Scope and Capabilities in Raleigh

With the addition of eight lawyers, Brooks Pierce has further bolstered the capability of its Raleigh office to provide a comprehensive complement of legal services to Triangle area businesses. Firm-wide, Brooks Pierce has grown by ten lawyers since the first of the year, bringing the total number of attorneys practicing in its Greensboro and Raleigh offices to 87.

“Our Managing Partner is fond of saying that the most important thing we do is hire the right lawyers,” noted Mark J. Prak, a Raleigh partner and member of the firm’s Management Committee. “With the attorneys who have joined the firm over the past few months, we are continuing the process of realizing that fundamental goal,” Prak remarked.

The most recent additions to the Raleigh office of Brooks Pierce are:

• Walt Tippett, a 16-year veteran of the Wake County Bar, whose practice is focused on litigation involving construction, real estate, and complex business and corporate problems; 
• David Smyth, a former Assistant Director in the Securities & Exchange Commission’s Enforcement Division, who will focus his practice on securities, business and financial crimes, government and internal investigations, and related litigation;
• Melissa Weaver, a former Brooks Pierce partner, who has focused her practice on employee benefits, tax law, and trusts and estates for some 25 years; 
• Julie Song, who previously practiced with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP in Washington, D.C., and served as program examiner in the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, and who will focus her practice on wealth management, tax and estate planning; 
• Anna McLamb, whose practice revolves around commercial real estate and land use law, and who practiced for three years in Atlanta prior to the past six years as a member of the Wake County Bar;
• Dorrian Horsey, who previously practiced with the Vorys Sater firm in Cleveland and most recently served as a Hearing Officer with the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina, will focus her practice on media and communications, civil litigation, employment law, and government relations;
• Laura Chipman, a 2009 UNC Law graduate whose practice includes media, entertainment and communications, civil litigation, corporate, and First Amendment issues; and
• Mike Dowling, a 2010 Duke Law graduate, who recently completed a judicial clerkship with U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle and plans to focus on litigation of all types.

“We are not interested in being big for bigness sake,” Prak observed.  “We at Brooks Pierce have been fortunate, even during trying economic times, to have businesses and individuals continue to ask us to handle their most difficult problems--as well as routine matters.  We continue to focus on maintaining the capacity for the firm to provide exceptional counsel and service to current and future clients.  We believe that if we have the right people riding the ‘Brooks firm bus,’ our law firm’s sustained, strategic, and organic growth will continue.”