AmLaw 100 firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton has elected corporate partner Lucantonio Salvi as its new chair, replacing Guy Halgren who is stepping down after two decades in the role.

Washington DC-based Salvi will assume the job full-time in October, until then working alongside Halgren as chair-elect. Salvi is the firm’s fifth chair and the first to be located outside of California. 

Halgren said: “Luca will be an exceptional leader for our firm. He has served in numerous leadership positions so he is experienced and well-known around the firm and understands who we are. Among Luca’s greatest strengths are his authenticity and ability to connect. He knows how to build consensus, lead and succeed.”

Salvi joined the firm as a partner in 2006 and went on to become co-managing partner of its Washington office between 2012 and 2017. He has also led the firm’s aerospace and defence and private equity teams, helping grow its M&A and private equity practice on the East Coast. Prior to joining Sheppard Mullin, Salvi spent almost seven years as an associate at Latham & Watkins having joined from Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy.

Salvi said: “Guy has been an extraordinary and caring leader over the last two decades. I look forward to continuing the firm’s trajectory of collegiality, entrepreneurialism, growth and pre-eminence as a destination firm with international reach for our global clients.”

Halgren has led the firm since 2001, helping it grow from fewer than 300 lawyers to almost 1,000 today, as well as opening 11 offices around the world including in London, Seoul and Shanghai. Under his leadership, the firm also experienced 20-years of consecutive revenue growth, up from $149m in 2001 to $867m last year.

He said: “When I was elected in 2001, I thought it would be a three-year stint. Now here I am 20 years later and turning 65. It has been a remarkable and rewarding journey through our nation’s and our profession’s economic and social challenges, bookended by 9/11 and the pandemic. Fortunately, I had an outstanding management team and a supportive, unselfish array of attorneys and staff around me.”