The Washington law firm Arent Fox said Monday that it has named longtime partner Mark M. Katz as its new chairman, a leadership change that comes as the legal sector copes with an economic downturn that has curtailed business and prompted layoffs.

Katz, 52, succeeds Marc L. Fleischaker, who served as chairman of the firm's executive committee for 14 years. Fleischaker will remain at the firm, concentrating on antitrust and civil rights cases.

Like many of its counterparts, Arent Fox has faced declining revenue as corporate clients cut back on legal work, particularly in commercial real estate and finance, Katz said Monday in an interview. Although the firm cut 13 associates and 15 staff members and is in the early stages of restructuring how it bills clients, Katz said Arent Fox wasn't hurt as deeply by the recession because it decided to grow more cautiously during the boom.

"Some of the firms that grew very rapidly and worked on a mega-international platform seem to be running into difficulties," he said. "We've grown on a patient pace, and that's helped us."

As of 2008, the latest year for which statistics from the economic development group Greater Washington Initiative are available, more than 40,000 lawyers worked in the Washington region, second only to the New York area. Nearly 64,000 people work in the legal profession in the Washington region, which employs more people in that sector on a per-capita basis than any U.S. metropolitan area.

Keith Halleland, one of the founders of Halleland Lewis Nilan & Johnson, is leaving to start a new law firm — and taking his name with him.

Halleland’s new firm will focus on business law and consulting when it launches this spring, according to a news release issued Thursday by the 50-attorney, Minneapolis firm now known as Nilan Johnson Lewis.

“I am proud of what we have achieved together over the years,” Halleland said in the release. “I am very excited about building something new, and I look forward to establishing a firm where my focus will be on the work I really love – business law and consulting.”

Nilan Johnson Lewis President Matthew Damon called Halleland “a big part of our growth and success over the 13 years we have been in business,” and said he expects the two firms to work together.

Robert Joffe, an antitrust, corporate governance and litigation specialist who worked for more than four decades at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, including eight as presiding partner, has died.

Joffe, 66, died on Thursday from cancer, according to Greg Johnson, chief executive of asset management company Franklin Resources Inc (BEN.N), where Joffe was a director and chaired the corporate governance committee.

Johnson spoke on a conference call. A spokeswoman for the law firm confirmed Joffe's death.

Joffe was principal litigator for Time Inc in its efforts in 1989 to resist a takeover by Paramount Communications Inc, according to a biography on Cravath's website,.

It said he later represented Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) in connection with its merger with America Online Inc, and a proxy fight by the investor Carl Icahn.