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Freshfields European exits continue as four partner Paris team gears up to join Orrick

Partners from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer continue to exit the firm’s European offices as a four partner team is about to leave the Paris outpost to join Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Corporate partner Patrick Tardivy, finance partners Emmanuel Ringeval and Herve Touraine and Paris employment head Emmanuel Benard are all set to depart from the Magic Circle firm and join Orrick’s Paris outpost Orrick Rambaud Martel in due course.

Orrick has over 100 lawyers in Paris having initially launched its office in 2002 and then expanded in 2006 through a merger with local firm Rambaud Martel, which specialised in M&A and dispute resolution work in France.

A spokesperson at Freshfields said: ‘These partners join a firm with a different platform to ours and with a different strategy. We wish them well. We are delighted with the current momentum that our Paris practice has developed in the market which has been reflected in high profile instructions. We look forward to continuing to deliver to our clients in France and internationally the high level of service they want and expect.’

The news comes within a week of a four-strong team exiting Freshfields’ Hamburg office to launch a boutique called Chatham Partners.

At the end of last year, Freshfields announced it was closing its Cologne office, with the bulk of its staff transferring to the firm’s existing Düsseldorf outpost.

Orrick has been expanding this year, with 13 partners joining the US firm including McDermott Will & Emery’s global head of energy Blake Winburne, and DLA Piper’s co-chair of global and US patent litigation Claudia Frost, as the firm launched a new office in Houston in February.

Orrick declined to comment.

jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk