King & Spalding has added six partners to its recently launched global human capital and compliance (GHCC) practice from US rivals Seyfath Shaw, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Barnes & Thornburg.

Tom Ahlering, co-chair of Seyfarth Shaw’s biometric compliance group, is joining King & Spalding in Chicago, while fellow Seyfarth partners Anne Dana, Gina Merrill, and Jesse Pauker will be based in the firm’s office in New York.

The line-up of new recruits is completed by newly-minted partners Jenny Neilsson and Pete Wozniak, who join the firm in Chicago from a role as counsel at Simpson Thacher and as a workplace class action litigator at Barnes & Thornburg respectively.

The GHCC group was launched earlier this year and operates across practice areas to advise corporate clients on workforce matters, including those related to the Covid-19 pandemic such as vaccines and office returns.

Todd Holleman, head of the firm’s corporate, finance and investments practice, which includes the GHCC group, said the new recruits bring “deep human capital experience across all of the critical issues that multinational companies are facing.”

They advise on a broad range of matters including employment related-privacy laws, disciplinary actions, complex employment litigation, employee benefits and the global workforce aspects of cross-border transactions.

Darren Gardner, head of the GHCC team, said: These are six very highly-regarded human capital partners who will help us continue to scale our team, deliver strategic business value and help our clients manage their material workforce risks in the US and around the world,” adding that the firm was “taking a very deliberate, global approach to help multinational company clients manage their most important workforce issues.”

King & Spalding’s clients include Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Shell and Google, according to Legal 500. The Atlanta-based firm has more than 1,200 lawyers in 22 offices worldwide and added the leader of Seyfarth’s executive compensation group, Jake Downing, to the GHCC practice in Chicago earlier this year.

The firm also announced in August that it had hired antitrust partner Salomé Cisnal de Ugarte from Hogan Lovells to launch a competition practice in Brussels and in June said it was partnering with the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs to provide legal support and education to black entrepreneurs and small business owners in its hometown of Atlanta.