All change

To say that Berwin Leighton Paisner’s recent Moscow launch was a surprise would be an understatement. With much of the market fighting for survival amid the most testing economic conditions since the 1998 financial crisis, BLP pulled off the largest law firm merger in Russia to date. Its sensational raid on leading Russian firm Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners (PGP) saw it recruit nine partners – including renowned managing partner Andrey Goltsblat – and a further 60 associates.

The move, which gifted BLP with a ready-made Russia practice that it predicts will boost firmwide turnover by 10%, left the market stunned. Chadbourne & Parke’s seasoned Moscow managing partner Laura Brank could only manage one word when Legal Business broke the news to her just a few days later: ‘Wow’.

It was a particularly wet and miserable November morning when LB met Goltsblat for a catch-up breakfast at Bonds restaurant in the City. The Threadneedles hotel, which houses Bonds, is less than a kilometre from BLP’s Adelaide House office at London Bridge, and Goltsblat would later make the short, ten-minute walk down Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street to continue negotiations.

With the process ongoing, it’s not entirely surprising that he didn’t tell LB of his plans that morning. It’s perhaps more surprising that he didn’t tell his firm, either. ‘Andrey’s meetings were extremely confidential, even to me,’ says Sergey Pepeliaev, PGP’s senior partner. ‘He took several business trips to London throughout 2008, and although he told us he was meeting clients, he was actually negotiating with BLP. [The team] didn’t tell us what was happening until they had already signed the contract with BLP. It came as a real surprise.’

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