William T. Matlack has been named partner with Sullivan & Worcester's Litigation Department in Boston. Prior to joining the firm as an associate, Matlack was a Massachusetts assistant attorney general in the Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division, where he was involved in litigation against the tobacco industry and other cases.
Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C. elected John R. Van Amsterdam as a shareholder, which is the equivalent of partner. Van Amsterdam prepares and prosecutes patents in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and molecular biology. His areas of expertise include polymer- and biological-based drug delivery systems, immune-response inducers, nucleic-acid therapeutics and gene therapy.
The law firm also hired as associates Maryanne Trevisan, formerly a technical specialist with Wolf Greenfield; Jamie H. Rose; and Geri Zollinger.
Judge Paul F. LoConto was appointed first justice of the Worcester District Court effective Feb. 13 to replace former First Justice Elliott L. Zide, who declined to seek reappointment when his term expired.
LoConto currently serves as regional administrative judge for District Court Region IV, which includes the 11 district courts in Worcester County as well as those in Framingham, Marlborough and Natick. In 1999, LoConto was appointed first justice of the Fitchburg District Court, a post he served in until he was appointed first justice of the Worcester District Court.
During his years on the bench, LoConto has been involved in a wide variety of judicial administration activities including as a member of the District Court's Committee on Uniform Complaint Language, the Committee on Care and Protection and CHIN Proceedings and the District Court Committee on Caseflow Management. He currently serves as the District Court representative on the Supreme Judicial Court's Committee on Judicial Performance Evaluation.
Maintaining its strategy of controlled and sustainable growth, Bowditch & Dewey, LLP, a law firm headquartered in Worcester, will open a Boston office at One International Place in May 2004. The 187-person, 64-attorney law firm, established in Worcester in 1914, opened its second office in Framingham in 1984. Bowditch & Dewey will remain headquartered in Worcester, where it has 134 employees.
Bowditch & Dewey's initial staffing strategy is to have four partners in the Boston office. Two of these - Jane Hawkes and George Tetler - are senior partners from the Worcester office who bring with them long-standing and deep relationships with the business community in Worcester and the MetroWest region. Both Tetler and Hawkes will continue to service their existing clients from the Boston platform. The firm is currently looking to hire additional partners with established practices in business and finance, real estate finance, and labor and employment.
Bowditch & Dewey's long-standing client relationships in Worcester, MetroWest and the surrounding communities will remain a central focus of the firm's mission and future. By taking advantage of a number of factors - including a strong market presence in its current locations and favorable office rents in Boston - Bowditch & Dewey will identify and capitalize on existing opportunities for growth and expansion.
Greenberg Traurig LLP has expanded its offices in Boston, taking two additional floors in International Place to accommodate its fast growth. The firm signed a lease last quarter to take 40,120 square feet of space on the 19th and 20th floors of International Place. The additional floors more than double Greenberg Traurig's current space in Boston.
Within the last year, Greenberg Traurig's presence in Boston has gone from 62 employees to 90. Gary Greenberg, managing partner for the Boston office, says that growth will continue this year and beyond. The two new floors had previously housed Hill & Barlow, a venerable Boston law firm that dissolved in 2003.