Amy B. Manning
Amy B. Manning
Christina M. Egan
Christina M. Egan

McGuireWoods LLP managing partner Thomas E. Cabaniss has named partner Christina M. Egan as the new managing partner for the firm’s Chicago office.

Egan has worked at the firm for four years handling white-collar and government investigation matters.

Her new role in the office — the firm’s third largest of 23 offices worldwide — became effective June 1.

She succeeds partner Amy B. Manning, who will now lead the firm’s new antitrust and trade regulation department.

“I was very excited by the opportunity because I have felt such gratification from being at McGuireWoods for the past four years, and to add a new dimension to my professional life at McGuireWoods was something that I felt very excited about,” Egan said.

Egan had most recently worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of Illinois before joining McGuireWoods. She said while she valued the 10 years she spent at that office, she had reached a point in her career where it was time to take on new challenges.

“The Chicago U.S. attorney’s office is just a phenomenal office, and one of the things that makes it so phenomenal is that there’s constantly room for new people to walk in the door,” she said. “For me, taking a step into the private sector, it was very important that I found a place that I would walk into every day and love.”

The 1995 Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law graduate is also part of a McGuireWoods team of former prosecutors who were hired by Chicago’s police oversight agency to independently review police involved shootings in the city.

She has also been an adjunct professor at Northwestern’s law school for the past eight years, where she has taught students about trial advocacy and the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

She has also previously lectured at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Undercover School and the National Advocacy Center for the Department of Justice.

Egan said she knew she had found that in McGuireWoods as soon as she interviewed for a position with the firm. She said she sensed very early on that the firm takes a genuinely collaborative and supportive approach to the way it conducts business with its clients and co-workers.

And now that Egan has logged four years with the firm, she said, that sentiment has proven to be “completely true” of her office colleagues.

“There is very much a team approach to the practice of law — whether it be on a given matter with partners, associates, paralegals and practice assistants or whether it be with partners in different practice areas really supporting the business development of their fellow partners,” she said.

But the firm was just as excited to bring her in as she was to join it. Aside from possessing the kind of experience the firm was looking for in a new lawyer, Egan also asked all the right questions and seemed like a “very gracious” person, Cabaniss said.

“You just get a good feeling about people like that,” he said.

Cabaniss said Egan is the firm’s primary lawyer in Chicago who handles her type of legal work. She will continue to have a full-time practice in her new role.

“She’s added a lot to our experience level in white-collar representations,” Cabaniss said. “She is a leader in the office.”

But it takes more than a deep commitment to demonstrating fundamental firm values — such as diversity and inclusion, collegiality and integrity — to be an effective managing partner in the office; it also takes good communication skills and a particular kind of dedication to every member of the office, no matter the person’s role, Manning said.

“I think (it also takes) understanding where you have strengths and where you want to build, a focus on strategic hires and a commitment to succession in client relationships and building the next generation,” she said.

“Creating a workplace that people are happy to go to only leads to better legal service, more efficiency and a positive working environment.”

Having previously worked on cases with Egan, Manning said she is confident Egan will bring the same sophisticated thinking to the managing partner office that she brings to her cases.

Manning said she relayed a similar sentiment upon announcing the news to the office, when she said she “felt blessed to be in an office that Christina will be leading.”

“When you change roles, obviously you still have a little bit of affection for your previous role. I couldn’t feel better for the person picked to come after me,” Manning said. “I think she’s exactly the right leader to have for this next phase.”

Although Egan is just 10 days into her new role, she said she’s enjoying it so far and is excited to be in a position where she can connect with all of the office’s lawyers.

“It just gives me a new role where I can really connect with everyone in the office, and I’m really enjoying it and look forward to enjoying that in the days to come,” she said.