Shearman & Sterling announced on Wednesday it has added two litigation partners from Haynes and Boone to its Dallas office.
Thad Behrens and Dan Gold represent public companies, corporate directors and officers and financial institutions in securities class actions, shareholder derivative cases, M&A litigation, tender offer litigation, proxy contests, commercial cases and internal investigations.
Behrens had practiced at Haynes and Boone since 2000 and Gold since 2005. They are notable additions for Shearman, which has focused most of its growth in Texas on the corporate transactional side to date. The firm added its first litigation partner in Texas in August when it brought on advertising and unfair competition expert Saul Perloff from Norton Rose Fulbright in Austin.
“We are thrilled to welcome Thad and Dan to the firm,” Adam Hakki, Shearman’s global managing partner and global head of disputes, said in a statement. “Their stellar market reputations and track record of success in major cases for corporate and financial services clients complements our existing capabilities perfectly and is a major step forward in the growth of our Texas-based litigation capability.”
Behrens has won key victories for Tenet Healthcare, the National Football League and BP Products North America.
He and Gold defended the NFL in a consumer class action brought by ticketholders to Super Bowl XLV, eventually obtaining a denial of class certification and then winning the subsequent federal jury trial against the remaining individual plaintiffs. In that trial, Behrens and Gold went toe-to-toe with now-disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti.
Behrens also obtained summary judgment for the NFL in two different lawsuits brought in Texas state courts by a fantasy football convention company.
In representing BP Products North America, Behrens helped the company defeat class certification and secure a voluntary dismissal in a $10 billion environmental litigation brought by property owners who claimed to have been harmed by alleged air emissions from one of the company’s oil refineries.
Gold has helped AT&T obtain a dismissal of a proposed shareholder action accusing AT&T and its leadership of misleading Time Warner shareholders to induce them to approve Time Warner’s acquisition by AT&T.