KirstenHicks Spira

Chambers USA 2026 guide once again recognized Jenner & Block as a leader in the California legal market, highlighting the firm’s excellence across its general commercial, white collar, media and entertainment, and intellectual property practices, with 13 lawyers earning individual recognition.

In major back-to-back victories for research in quantum computing, AI, cybersecurity, semiconductors, and other technologies vital to national security and competitiveness, Jenner & Block secured critical court orders halting federal funding cuts at US universities. 

The Chambers USA 2025 guide has recognized Jenner & Block’s excellence in its California practice rankings. Chambers now has repeatedly ranked Jenner for its general commercial, white collar, media and entertainment, and intellectual property practices. Chambers also recognized seven California partners in its band of rankings and four California partners as “up and coming” in its rankings.

For the fourth year in a row, Partners Michael McNamara and Kirsten Hicks Spira have been recognized as 2025 Top Professional Responsibility Lawyers by the Daily Journal. The annual award highlights the “top performing attorneys in legal malpractice matters and ethics.”

Jenner & Block is pleased to announce its Law Firm and Professional Services Defense Practice achieved a Nationwide Band 1 ranking in the 2024 edition of Chambers USA. This marks the first year that Chambers has included a Nationwide Law Firm Defense category among its rankings.  

For the third year in a row, Partners Michael McNamara and Kirsten Hicks Spira have been recognized as 2024 Top Professional Responsibility Lawyers by the Daily Journal. The annual award highlights the “top performing attorneys in legal malpractice matters and judicial representation.”

CENTURY CITY AND SAN FRANCISCO, CA – DECEMBER 13, 2023 – Jenner & Block has expanded its presence in California, opening its third office in the state in Century City and more than doubling its footprint in San Francisco. With these additions – at 2029 Century Park East in Century City and 525 Market Street in San Francisco – the firm is poised to support its booming California practices and exciting lateral growth.

In an article for the Los Angeles County Bar Association Update, Partner Kirsten Hicks Spira and Associate Rebekah Lee discuss how attorney-client relationships are formed and provide tips for lawyers to avoid being accused of picking up or maintaining a client, when that was not what was intended by the lawyer.

Partners Michael McNamara and Kirsten Hicks Spira have been recognized as 2023 Top Professional Responsibility Lawyers by the Daily Journal for the second year in a row. The annual award highlights the “top performing attorneys in legal malpractice matters and judicial representation.”

Our Los Angeles office makes an impact by advocating for vulnerable and marginalized populations in the greater Southern California region. From foster children to asylum seekers to immigrant detainees, our clients need access to justice that our teams provide. We support small businesses and nonprofits, and we represent clients in court-appointed matters from all the federal pro bono panels and before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Read on to learn about some of our c

Each year, Jenner & Block Partner Kirsten Spira and the Alliance for Children’s Rights join forces to guide foster parents through the bureaucratic process on the way to successful adoptions. These cases involve children who have been placed in the foster care system and their birth parents’ parental rights have – either voluntarily or otherwise – already been severed. The children come in all ages and from a variety of difficult situations, but what they have in common is they have been placed

Jenner & Block Partner Kirsten Spira shared her insight on the use of experts in legal malpractice litigation in a panel presentation titled “Use of Experts in Legal Malpractice Matters – Maximizing the Impact of Your Expert." Speaking at the Fall 2022 National Legal Malpractice Conference sponsored by the ABA’s Standing Committee on Lawyers’ Professional Liability, she and other panelists discussed the subject by dividing the issues presented into innings of a baseball game. Ms. Spira explained

Jenner & Block Partners Miwa Shoda and Kirsten H. Spira were recognized as legal visionaries by the Los Angeles Times Business of Law Magazine.

The Daily Journal recognized Jenner & Block Partner Kirsten Hicks Spira in “Top Women Lawyers 2022,” its list of California women lawyers at the top of their practice. The publication highlighted Ms. Spira’s work on an entertainment case and her representation of a defense contractor sued under the Defense Contractor Whistleblower Protection Act as well as a law firm caught up in the collapse of the Woodbridge Group of Companies’ alleged Ponzi scheme.

Diverse, Cross-Office Elevations Bolster Key Groups

Partners Michael McNamara and Kirsten Spira have been recognized as Top Professional Responsibility Lawyers by the Daily Journal. They serve as co-chairs of Jenner & Block’s nationally recognized Professional Responsibility Practice.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California recently recognized Partner Kirsten Hicks Spira and Special Counsel Wesley M. Griffith as honorees for their commitment to pro bono during the District’s annual “Night to Honor Service.” 

Associates Wesley M. Griffith, Elizabeth Avunjian, and Effiong K. Dampha led a team that obtained a favorable settlement on the eve of trial in a Section 1983 civil rights case.  The civil rights action arose from our client reporting several prison guards for misconduct.  Our client alleged that in retaliation for his report, the guards took him to an isolated area of the prison that was closed for construction and beat him until he lost consciousness. 

In this article, Jenner & Block Partner Kirsten Hicks Spira and former summer associate Rebekah Lee explain that California this year became the 39th state to adopt a duty of technology competence when it added Comment 1 to Rule 1.1 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct. “While technology has provided attorneys with tools to work faster and more efficiently, it has also created a new set of technical and ethical challenges. California’s adoption of a duty of technology competence wil