Morgan Lewis Continues Houston Expansion with Labor & Employment Group

HOUSTON, April 4, 2008: Continuing its trend of rapid expansion into the Lone Star State, Morgan Lewis—which has added 17 attorneys in the areas of litigation, intellectual property, and corporate law to its Houston office in the past three months alone—today announced the addition of another practice area in South Texas. After a successful Texas launch for the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice in Dallas last December with a team of six partners from Baker & McKenzie, this week three well-known Houston labor lawyers—partner Nancy L. Patterson, senior counsel A. John Harper II, and associate A. John Harper III—join the firm from Baker Hostetler and Fulbright & Jaworski.

Since January of last year, the number of Morgan Lewis attorneys in Texas has grown from 18 to 59, an increase of more than 200%. This latest addition brings the firm’s labor and employment capabilities—which have made Morgan Lewis a winner or finalist in every American Lawyer magazine “Litigation Department of the Year” competition since 2004—into a market seen as pivotal in reaching key industries such as energy, oil and gas, mining, transportation, technology and telecommunications, construction, and manufacturing.

Nancy Patterson, formerly of Baker Hostetler, brings experience with a cross-section of labor and employment issues, including wage and hour counseling and litigation, ERISA litigation, complex employment litigation, and Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower cases. Nancy was recently named one of the “Top 100 Lawyers” in the state of Texas, and has also been recognized as one of the “Top 50 Female Lawyers” in Texas. A. John Harper III practiced with Nancy at Baker Hostetler, where he worked on a number of labor relations and employment law matters.

A. John Harper II joins from Fulbright & Jaworski, where he was the leader of that firm's labor and employment practice from 1994 until January of this year. His 40 years of practice include experience in labor relations matters, workforce change issues, as well as wage and hour, employment, and ERISA counseling and litigation. Both Nancy and John II are well known in the Texas legal community and have received numerous accolades, including second-tier rankings in Chambers USA.

They join a team of Morgan Lewis attorneys who counsel and represent Fortune 500 companies across a broad array of labor and employment matters, including complex employment litigation; race, sex, and disability discrimination; harassment; wrongful discharge; overtime lawsuits; Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA); and noncompete agreements.

About Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Morgan Lewis is an international law firm with more than 1,400 lawyers in 22 offices located in Beijing, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, Harrisburg, Houston, Irvine, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Princeton, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. For more information about Morgan Lewis, please visit www.morganlewis.com.