Alston & Bird LLP on Thursday announced a major expansion into California with the Los Angeles firm of Weston Benshoof Rochefort Rubalcava & MacCuish LLP and its 83 attorneys becoming part of Alston & Bird. The firm also announced the opening of a 12-attorney office in Silicon Valley. The addition of the new lawyers in California will bring the total number of attorneys at Alston & Bird to more than 900.

The new West Coast offices mark the latest in an expansion at Alston & Bird that will have seen the opening of three new offices in the past year.

“Alston & Bird’s continued growth is the result of our increasing national and international client base for whom our strategic approach is simple: We will be where our clients are and need us to be,” said Richard Hays, Alston & Bird’s managing partner. “While Alston & Bird has been representing clients on the West Coast for years, teaming up with some of the best talent in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley gives us stronger footing in a number of key practice areas that will benefit our clients and better serve their needs.”

Weston Benshoof’s highly regarded areas of expertise include its environmental and land use practices, which will complement Alston & Bird’s own energy infrastructure and sustainability practice — recently ranked as a top national and international practice in the 2008 editions of Chambers USA and Chambers Global Guides. The 2008 Chambers USA Guide also ranked four Weston Benshoof lawyers and its environmental practice section among the best in California.

“We are particularly excited about teaming with Weston Benshoof’s talented and deep litigation department,” Hays said. “We share many client relationships with them, and we look forward to building those relationships. Weston Benshoof’s strong litigation and trial practice, which includes intellectual property, complex business and class action litigation, adds substantial depth to Alston & Bird’s existing litigation practice.”

Weston Benshoof also brings to Alston & Bird its significant experience in real estate, construction and water resources, which complement the environmental and land use practices. Leveraging Weston Benshoof’s environmental expertise in California with the firm’s energy policy and finance practices in Washington and New York will keep Alston & Bird at the top in these emerging areas of policy and law.

Weston Benshoof will officially become part of Alston & Bird on Sept. 1.

Jonatha King of King Communications represents Weston Benshoof law firm.