Ryan Michael Buschell was promoted to special counsel of Covington & Burling LLP in San Francisco.

Buschell's practice covers civil litigation and arbitration matters and is focused on securing insurance coverage for policyholders. He is based in San Francisco.

Patrick Flynn was promoted to special counsel of Covington & Burling LLP in Palo Alto.

Flynn represents electronics companies in patent litigation matters. He has litigated on cases involving mobile phone software, digital signal processors, networking and programmable mixed signal integrated circuits. He is based in Palo Alto.

Carmen J. Cole joined Squire Patton Boggs as partner in Los Angeles.

Cole advises employers on issues such as wage and hour laws, reductions in force, recruitment and hiring, employee classification, leave laws and terminations. She is based in Los Angeles and Atlanta.

Dennis Huang joined Squire Patton Boggs as principal in Los Angeles.

Huang focuses on comprehensive estate and business planning. He represents small businesses and individual clients on a variety of matters including trust formation and business succession. He is based in Los Angeles.

Dino Tovar Barajas joined DLA Piper LLP as partner in Los Angeles.

Barajas joined DLA Piper's finance practice in Los Angeles, where he is co-chair of the U.S. projects and infrastructure group as well as the Latin American corporate and finance practice.

Barajas joined the firm from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Before joining DLA Piper, he led the Latin America practices at three international law firms and has received many accolades of along the way. He has been practicing for 26 years.

"My practice is pretty evenly split between U.S. and Latin America, and I do a lot of work in energy, particularly in power, but I've worked across sectors," he said.

Barajas said his mentor taught him to move with the market and anticipate trends before they become trends and to not "simply learn one instrument."

"Multitask and learn to play every instrument of the band because you never know what instrument somebody wants to hear you play and what need arises," he said. "So from that point of view, I've had a fairly eclectic practice in terms of where I've worked."

Although, his practice is mostly focused on U.S. and Latin America, Barajas' work has touched other jurisdictions, including on a deal in Yemen.

Barajas focuses on domestic and international project development and finance, specializing in Latin American infrastructure projects, debt financings and mergers and acquisitions.

His client list includes international corporations and their interests in Latin America, including lenders, investors and developers in project financing in the energy, power, infrastructure and commercial sectors.

Beyond providing legal advice, Barajas said he strives to be a business advisor and actively look for future opportunities for his clients.

When considering his move to DLA Piper after 10 years at Akin Gump, Barajas took time to ensure the move benefited his clients. "I think now the Modus Operandi for most people is they're jumping around every two or three years, and it almost looks like musical chairs. But in terms of my old platform, great platform, great people to work with, but in terms of the platform that DLA offered me and offered my clients, which I try to prioritize, was that they were everywhere at least in terms of Latin America that I needed to be."

According to Barajas, travel was his favorite part of his practice, but today it's something different.

"Thankfully, I've had the opportunity to do a lot of first-of-their-kind deals. A number of them have been recognized deals of the year and other market recognitions," he said. "So that's always kept my practice fun and interesting. You know, you never dip your toe in the same river twice, kind of thing."

Paul Skip Spaulding joined Shartsis Friese LLP as partner in San Francisco.

Spaulding has over 30 years of experience litigating and counseling clients on matters regarding environmental, natural resources and land use. He is based in San Francisco.

Kevin Leiske joined Shartsis Friese LLP as partner in San Francisco.

Previously with a firm in Austin, Leiske advises clients on all stages ofctheir operations. He handles domestic and international federal income taxation of corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies. He is based in San Francisco.

Alec G. Nedelman joined Katten as senior counsel in Los Angeles.

Nedelman joins the firm's west coast real estate group. Previously, Nedelman served as general counsel of structured finance at iStar Inc. and Safehold Inc. He is based in Los Angeles.

James Neudecker joined Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP as partner in San Francisco.

Neudecker joined Jeffer Mangels' litigation practice after 18 years at Reed Smith. His first day was
March 25.

A litigator, Neudecker said he considers himself a generalist.

"I've touched just about every area of litigation," he said. "Right now, or for the past few years, I would say probably about 80% of my litigation is commercial litigation or consumer facing litigation."

In the past, his clients have included companies such as Renovate America and FirstGroup as well as businesses that own and operate bars and restaurants along with other events in San Francisco.

Neudecker said he gave his move a great deal of thought and found Jeffer Mangels "by far and away the most appealing" option that presented itself.

"[Jeffer Mangels] really presented a truly unique opportunity. It's a large enough firm that, it's full service, and they can handle the most complex litigation yet it's a small enough, it's about 120 lawyers, where you know every person not just every lawyer, but every person on a first name basis and they have a real California focus. Their litigation capabilities are nationwide, but their offices are in San Francisco, LA and Orange County. So, it was a truly unique place in my view and a truly unique opportunity."

He anticipates his practice's focus to stay primarily the same with the move.

At Jeffer Mangels, Neudecker hopes to build his practice and do quality legal work with top notch colleagues.

"Being a generalist, you're going to work on a lot of different types of cases and a lot of different business sectors and you're constantly learning new things about new companies in different industries," he said. "There's not a lot of cutting and pasting in the business litigation work that I do. There's a lot of variety, every case is different, and it's an opportunity to learn about a lot of different things and a lot of different areas."

Angela Christine Agrusa was promoted to managing partner of DLA Piper in Los Angeles.

As a business litigator, Agrusa represents individuals, companies and brands in complex commercial, class action and civil cases. She is based in Los Angeles.

Dean Fealk was promoted to managing partner of DLA Piper in San Francisco.

Fealk focuses on corporate, securities, regulatory, tax, labor, foreign exchange and data privacy matters. He is based in San Francisco.

Victoria Wing-Yan Lee was promoted to managing partner of DLA Piper in Northern California & Silicon Valley.

Lee represents emerging growth and public companies in complex technology and commercial transactions. She is based in East Palo Alto.

Carrie Lynne Williamson was promoted to deputy managing partner of DLA Piper in Silicon Valley.

Williamson focuses on patent litigation including discovery, pretrial and trial matters.She is based in Silicon Valley.

Sunghak "Andy" Baik joined Mayer Brown as partner in San Francisco.

Baik has joined Mayer Brown's tax transactions and consulting practice as partner from Ernst & Young LLP. He is based in the firm's San Francisco office.
His first day was March 17.

Baik's practice is focused on advising foreign companies, primarily from Asia who are investing in the U.S., regarding U.S. tax and cross border tax matters. Additionally, he also works with U.S. and European multi-national companies, who have operations in Asia and are looking for expertise regarding cross border tax issues.

Baik said he was attracted to Mayer Brown's attributes, such as its "robust global platform" and "deep bench," which fit with his practice.

"I was driven to Mayer Brown because of the opportunity to advise, for example my Asian clients, not just on tax, but you know, related services, legal services that Mayer Brown has a lot of capabilities in."

Baik said he does not expect his focus to change with the move, but he does anticipate he'll "target a broader range of clients."

"I'm very much looking forward to continuing to serve clients with their best interest in mind, but I think the additional attraction, as I said earlier, is I'll be able to bring Mayer Brown's strength and capabilities in many legal areas to my clients."

Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Baik spent 25 years at very large accounting and audit firms. He spent nearly a dozen of those years working in Singapore and Korea, where he advised on tax matters.

For Baik, what makes his practice unique is his focus on Asia-U.S. cross border matters.

"I think a lot of U.S. companies when they're investing in Asia have the additional challenge of navigating through differences in culture, norms and legal system. The environment may be very different from the U.S. so that makes it often challenging for a lot of U.S. companies. So the ability to provide tailored guidance based on experience and expertise in this area, many clients find it valuable."

Arielle O Harris as shareholder in Walnut Creek

Harris focuses on land use, environmental and natural resources law and
litigation. She is based in Walnut Creek.

Amy C. Quartarolo was promoted to partner of Latham & Watkins LLP in Los Angeles.

Quartarolo is a member of the firm's complex commercial litigation practice and the creditors rights & bankruptcy litigation practice. She is based in Los Angeles.

Robb C. Adkins joined Baker & Hostetler LLP as partner in San Francisco.

Adkins joined Baker & Hostetler LLP as partner, and he's also leading the firm's new San Francisco office.

"I've been brought on board for what I think is, at least in my view, a very rare experience to be able to open a new office in a major legal market for a national law firm," Adkins said. "In my experience, those opportunities don't come around very often, certainly with a firm of the caliber of BakerHostetler. And so, I'm just really excited to take on this role."

Adkins joined BakerHostetler's white collar and investigations group as well as its complex commercial litigation group. His first official day with the firm was Mar. 9.

"I'll be leading, the San Francisco office, both in terms of my day job being a lawyer and doing white collar work and litigation but also exercising different muscles to help recruit and grow and continue to grow the West coast presence," said Adkins.

Adkins' spent a decade as a federal prosecutor in positions such as chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Orange County and as a member of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. He moved into private practice in 2011 and since then he has handled white collar matters, complex civil litigation and trial work.

He was managing partner of Winston & Strawn's San Francisco office, head of its west coast litigation group and co-chair of the white collar practice before joining BakerHostetler.

In his new role as lead of the San Francisco office, Adkins hopes to help grow the office strategically with a focus on the core strengths BakerHostetler already has, but may not specifically have in the Bay area.

Adkins describes his move to BakerHostetler as an easy one because he worked with several people from the firm in the past. The move will not change the focus of his practice, Adkins said.

"The joy and the satisfaction I get from doing white collar work are those instances where you're really able to help people, where you're able to take what appears to be a very scary situation, usually one that a company or an individual has never seen before. To be able to help them through that process, which is new to them, but not new to me. And then get them into a position where they can move on with their lives."

Steven K. Berenson joined Klinedinst PC as senior counsel in San Diego.

Berenson has represented individuals and government entities in state and federal courts regarding matters such as legal ethics, civil litigation and family law. He is based in San Diego.