With longstanding K&L Gates leader Peter Kalis set to step down early next year, the firm has picked Michael Caccese and James Segerdahl to succeed him.
Kalis’s accumulation of power, acting as both chairman and global managing partner, is set to be carved up with Caccese set to serve as chairman while Segerdahl will become managing partner and chief executive. The changes take effect on 1 March 2017.
Kalis (pictured), who has led the firm since 1997, told the firm’s management committee in the summer that he would step down. After a two-month deliberative process commencing in early July, K&L Gates’ 75-partner global management committee have unanimously recommended Caccese and Segerdahl.
Caccese, who splits his time between Boston and Pittsburgh, is currently practice management vice chairman and is a global leader of the firm’s financial services practice. He joined K&L Gates in 2001 from the CFA Institute, an association of investment professionals, where he was senior vice president and general counsel.
Segerdahl has acted as K&L Gates’ general counsel and secretary to the management committee for the past decade and became vice chairman in 2013. He joined K&L Gates’ Pittsburgh office in 1987 directly out of law school and is a co-founder of its insurance coverage practice.
Kalis said: ‘They hail from two of our strongest global practices – Mike, from investment management, and Jim, from insurance coverage –and their service as vice chairmen of the firm has been universally recognized by our partners as brilliant, dedicated, and selfless. I know them, moreover, to be extraordinary human beings who will perpetuate the values upon which this firm is based well into the future. They have the firm’s complete confidence.’
Both men paid homage to Kalis, with Caccese saying he ‘owe[s] much to all of the hard work and strategic planning Pete Kalis, the management committee and many of my partners have done to make K&L Gates a preeminent global law firm’.
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk