Posted on

‘The legal function is designed to enable business, not block it’: Pia Ullum, Dell Technologies

From navigating the complexities of global IT services to helping steer one of the world’s largest technology companies through rapid digital transformation, Pia Ullum, vice president of legal at Dell Technologies, has spent more than two decades shaping what modern in‑house leadership looks like.

Today, Ullum’s remit spans EMEA, India and Canada, while she also oversees the legal dimension of Dell’s global partner strategy and programmes – reflecting both the scale of Dell’s reach and the trust she has built as a strategic partner to the business. But the journey began far from the technology world.

‘First and foremost, legal is designed to enable the business, not block it’

Ullum trained in private practice before moving into IT in 2004, taking on senior roles at CSC (now DXC) and later Dell. Yet from the earliest stages of her career, she challenged the stereotype of legal as a function that slows things down. 

‘First and foremost, the legal function is designed to enable business, not block it,’ she says. ‘That starts with understanding the company’s priorities and risk appetite.’ This alignment is something she actively builds, not something she waits to be invited into. Regular dialogue with decision‑makers is central, as is ensuring that legal advice comes framed in business terms. 

‘I make sure our advice is focused on impact and solutions, not just compliance. When you do that consistently, legal is seen as a partner in driving growth.’ Ullum is intentional about how the legal function shows up within the business. Rather than delivering advice anchored solely in rules or formal compliance obligations, she consistently ensures that her team frames their guidance in terms of commercial impact and practical pathways forward.

For her, legal’s value lies in clarifying how the business can progress safely and effectively, not in highlighting barriers. This approach, rooted in solutions and strategic relevance, is one she applies rigorously.

And when legal advice is presented through that lens time and again, she notes, the function naturally evolves from being perceived as a checkpoint to being recognised as a genuine partner in driving growth. 

‘Even when we don’t have all the answers, communication matters’

Over the years, Ullum has led teams through significant organisational and technological change, from large‑scale transformation programmes to the current era of AI acceleration. Her leadership philosophy rests on three cornerstones: transparency, clarity of vision and fostering adaptability. 

‘Communication and transparency are critical – even when all answers are not available,’ she says. Without that, uncertainty fills the vacuum. With it, teams feel anchored. She encourages her team to concentrate on what they can influence, which creates direction even in ambiguous phases. And she places great value on cultivating curiosity within her team, encouraging them to experiment with new tools, explore emerging technologies and adopt an interactive, learning‑driven mindset. ‘Celebrating an exploratory mindset, trying new tools, embracing technology and learning through experimentation helps maintain momentum and confidence during transformation.’

For her, transformation is not simply a process to be managed but an opportunity to rethink how legal delivers value. By celebrating this exploratory approach, she helps the team maintain both momentum and confidence during periods of significant change. It is this openness to innovation, she believes, that enables legal to evolve alongside the business rather than react to it. 

Like many seasoned legal leaders, Ullum sees AI and automation as ushering in a decisive shift in the nature of legal work. ‘AI will take on repetitive, low‑risk tasks, freeing us for high‑risk, complex and ethical decisions,’ she says. But that requires more than technical know‑how. It requires judgment.

In her view, the future of the legal function will demand a combination of strong critical thinking, greater conviction in working with data, and the ability to collaborate closely with technology teams. Just as crucial will be adopting a business‑aligned decision‑making mindset, ensuring that legal guidance consistently supports strategic objectives as the function operates ever more squarely at the intersection of law, technology and commercial strategy.

‘Legal is increasingly operating at the intersection of law, business and innovation’

Embedding legal in the business strategy, Ullum is clear-eyed about the importance of connecting legal advice to the company’s overall mission. ‘Each function has its responsibilities, but ultimately we are all here to support the company strategy and transformation,’ she says.

Dell’s legal department uses the enterprise strategy to shape its own priorities – a framework that drives decision‑making, resource allocation, as well as the way legal support is delivered. ‘How we spend time, how we deploy resources, it all ties back to the organisation’s strategic goals.’

The impact of a modern GC hinges not just on technical expertise, but on the relationships they build. For Ullum, the foundation of those relationships is curiosity and commercial understanding. ‘Making a real effort to understand our business partners’ priorities and challenges goes a long way,’ she says. ‘If you’re genuinely interested in solving business issues alongside your colleagues, trust builds naturally.’

That trust is what earns legal a seat at the table. ‘When advice is framed as enabling informed risk‑taking, not avoiding risk altogether, legal becomes a true strategic partner.’

As Dell continues to evolve at the pace of technological change, Ullum’s approach reflects a modern vision for the in‑house function: commercially grounded, technologically fluent and deeply connected to the business it supports. Her focus on curiosity, clarity and strategic partnership underscores not just how legal can keep up with transformation, but how it can help lead it.

Across continents, transformations and technologies, one theme has remained consistent: the belief that legal should help the business move forward, not hold it back. 

And for Ullum, that principle continues to define her leadership. 

Posted on

Inside Ropes & Gray’s calculated European PE expansion

Every Monday, at 11am, the four co-heads of Ropes & Gray’s European private equity practice meet in London. The US firm marked 15 years in the City in December but, until 2025, did not have any presence in continental Europe. This changed last year when the firm launched in both Paris and Milan within six months. 

The firm gave a further indication of its ambitions late last month, when it added a 10-lawyer team from Linklaters in Paris, as well as hiring the Swedish former GC of key client EQT, Paul Dali, in London.  Demonstrating the growing appeal of its nascent European practice, the firm also closed a  £3.2bn deal advising EQT on its purchase of Coller Capital. 

‘As a global private equity firm, Europe is at the heart of our clients’ investment ambitions. We’re committed to growing our presence and capabilities in the region to help them succeed,’ says John Newton, one of the firm’s European PE co-heads, explaining that the continent was a market the firm could not ignore.

Now, at the start of every week, Newton and fellow London-based PE co-head Libby Todd are joined by their European counterparts – Fabrice Cohen, who joined from Clifford Chance in Paris, and Cataldo Piccarreta, who moved across from Latham in Milan but is based primarily in London. 

‘The weekly meetings serve as a touchpoint for ensuring we operate as a genuinely integrated European platform – we discuss live matters but also pipeline opportunities that we want to flag to clients,’ Todd explains. ‘It’s multiple locations, but it’s one platform,’ London managing partner Rohan Massey adds. 

According to Todd, while the openings reflect client demand the firm had to wait until it found the right partners. ‘Clients wanted the depth of relationship and consistency of service they received from us in the US and UK, replicated in continental Europe. But we had to be patient. It only made sense in making the move if we found the right talent – the Paris and Milan teams are best-in-class.’

Piccarreta (pictured), first came to the firm’s attention through some common clients. ‘Ropes saw an opportunity and we started discussions and there was a complete overlap in terms of clients. Some sponsors are important clients for me and for the firm, so this was an easy decision for everyone,’ Piccarreta said. Bain is  a longstanding client of Piccarreta.

The client synergies were similarly clear for Cohen, too. In his former role, Cohen was the relationship partner for Partners Group in Paris, a key client of Ropes in the US.

‘Immediately, we’re working with a lot of key clients that are the same and therefore the synergies are obvious and the European platform is immediately efficient,’ he says. 

But the opportunities to cross-sell are also evident, with Cohen hoping to introduce Permira, an existing client of his, to the firm’s wider network. These cross-selling opportunities have expanded further with the arrival of Edouard Chapellier and Jonathan Abensour, a funds and tax partner from Linklaters in  Paris respectively, as the pair have a deep relationship with French private equity house Ardian.

While clients wanted the firm to have lawyers on the ground across Europe to bring local insight, Cohen reiterates the importance of viewing Europe as one single offering: ‘What we’re seeing is that our clients are internally less organised by jurisdiction, and more by the practices and verticals they cover. They would like their advisers to do the same,’ he says.  

In Italy, a large driver of the maturing private equity market is sole-founders looking to monetise their assets. ‘Italy is a place where you need Italian speakers to do this,’ explains Piccarreta, who has opened more than 30 matters since joining in September. ‘One needs the soft skills as sometimes there is a cultural clash [between the founders and private equity]. This is our role now as lawyers, to speak both languages, not just Italian and English but to understand the perspective of the local people and of clients and investors… the most successful bids are built on trust, sometimes it takes years to complete a deal.’ 

While Dali will be based in London, in addition to solidifying the firm’s overall connection with Swedish PE powerhouse EQT, he also provides  local knowledge of the Nordics, which remain a fertile area for private equity. ‘If you look at the pan-European perspective, [Nordic] funds are still growing,’ Dali says. ‘It’s an interesting trend compared to other parts of Europe, where assets under management for mid-market PE are generally flatter.’

While Dali doesn’t bring a book of clients with him, he returns to private practice with significant expertise in fund M&A and a wealth of contacts at GC level across Europe. ‘Paul is extremely well connected in EQT and in Europe and can bring new skills to our platform,’ Newton comments. ‘He has a track record leading negotiations for EQT in their acquisitions of other funds (Dali advised on EQT’s acquisition of secondaries fund Coller Capital) and we believe these skills can be accretive as we see more consolidation in the market.’

For Piccarreta and Cohen, launching new offices for such an established US firm was an enticing proposition. ‘It’s rare you have a firm opening in Paris,’ Cohen says, adding that the last big US firm to open in the French capital was Kirkland & Ellis seven years ago. ‘It’s an opportunity to create an office at the top of the French market and leave a legacy for the next generation.’

There’s no doubt the European expansion also helps reinforce the firm’s PE practice in London too. Ropes has seen no fewer than five partners leave across PE and real estate PE over the last year in London, most notably Hall of Fame partner Helen Croke left for White & Case last summer. 

It’s clear that the firm is still very much in growth mode on the continent. Cohen says Ropes is still looking to add partners in infrastructure, finance and regulatory to meet the needs of France’s infra-focused market. Meanwhile, in Milan, the office has continued to grow with the addition of corporate partner Alessandro Capogrosso and antitrust counsel Jacopo Figus Diaz, who join from local Italian firms Pedersoli Gattai and Legance respectively.

‘With the firm’s transactional focus, we’re looking to grow the number of corporate partners in Paris, says Cohen.  ‘The individual and culture will be essential since we are a people business so we won’t grow for its own sake but rather be opportunistic and selective.’

The London office will also grow in 2026, says Massey, ‘There’s no doubt about that. It will grow by headcount and revenue.’

Looking ahead, an opening in Germany could also be on the cards further down the line. ‘Germany is the largest economy in Europe,’ says Piccarreta, ‘so naturally we will consider it. Spain is an interesting market too but I like that at Ropes the firm doesn’t make theoretical strategies, it is about the concrete opportunities available instead.’

[email protected]

Posted on

Seal of approval: the LB100 firms with the strongest client recommendations

New data has revealed the LB100 firms that clients most strongly recommend, with Leigh Day emerging as the top-scoring firm and Freshfields rising sharply up the rankings this year.

The findings are drawn from the responses to the question: ‘On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend this firm?’, which is posed to all Legal 500 referees, enabling a Net Promoter Score (NPS) to be calculated for each firm.

NPS is a client satisfaction metric calculated by taking the percentage of ‘promoters’ – respondents that score firms nine or ten out of 10 – and subtracting the percentage of ‘detractors’ – those scoring firms six or below. Respondents who score firms seven or eight are considered ‘passives.’

Based on an analysis of almost 90,000 responses for the UK’s 100 largest law firms by revenue – which was carried out for the first time last year – Leigh Day scores most highly, with an NPS of 87.2%.

The claimant-side disputes firm sits ahead of TMT and IP specialist Wiggin on 84.4%, with Scots firm Shepherd and Wedderburn in third on 84.3%.

Other firms to make the top 10 include Slaughter and May, Travers Smith and last year’s top-scoring firm, pensions boutique Sackers.

Among the firms to have most significantly improved their NPS scores since last year’s research, Freshfields is the sharpest climber, with its NPS score increasing by more than 12% from 65.8% to 77.9% this year.

Other firms to have increased their scores by more than 7% on last year include RPC, DWF and northwest firm JMW.

Freshfields London managing partner Mark Sansom (pictured) put the firm’s increased scores down to its focus on ‘building trusted, long-term relationships’

‘We’re investing in our people, technology and global platform so we can stay ahead of the challenges our clients are dealing with,’ he said. That commitment to high-quality, collaborative service is what drives us every day.’

Looking at just the magic circle firms, Slaughter and May scores above its larger peers with an NPS of 82.8%. This marks the second year in a row that Slaughters has topped the City’s elite, and comes on the back of it also being identified as has having the best-quality partners, based on Legal 500 data.

When comparing NPS scores by geographic breakdown, London firms once again score the highest on average, with almost half of the top 20 firms being single-office London firms, with an average NPS score of 79.2%.

Alongside Wiggin, Travers and Sackers, the highest scoring London firms include Harbottle & Lewis and Farrer & Co.

Regional firms have the second highest average NPS score with 76.5%, followed by international (75.8%) and national (73.3%). The strongest showings from regional firms include northern firm Ward Hadaway, Guildford’s Stevens & Bolton and Scotland’s Morton Fraser MacRoberts.

This article is based on data gathered through Legal 500’s annual research programme, which captures millions of data points each year. LB100 firms not featured in this ranking did not receive a sufficient number of referee responses for the data to be considered statistically robust. For more information on our methodology and our other data products, please contact [email protected].

Posted on

Ex-Paul Weiss chair and Goldman GC reviewed documents defending Epstein in last months of his life, files show

Former Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp and Goldman Sachs GC Kathryn Ruemmler both reviewed documents that defended convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as he faced mounting scrutiny in the last months of his life, the Epstein files have revealed.

The files, released at the end of last month by the US Department of Justice, contain a wealth of communications between Epstein and both Karp and Ruemmler, extending to the months before Epstein’s July 2019 arrest and his death in custody that August.

On 2 March 2019, Epstein emailed Karp saying: ‘have letter to editor NYT ready to rock’, and asking Karp who the letter ought to be directed to.

Four minutes later Karp replied, noting four editorial staff members at the New York Times and advising Epstein to send the letter by email, adding: ‘The draft looked strong.’

Two days later, the NYT published ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s Attorneys: A Fair Plea Deal‘ – an open letter signed by Kenneth Starr, Martin Weinberg, Jack Goldberger and Lilly Ann Sanchez, identified in the letter as ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s current and former lawyers’.

All four were on Epstein’s legal team for the 2008 plea deal. Starr, the former US solicitor general, was well-known for his role in President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, but was not practising at a law firm at the time of the letter’s publication. Weinberg was a sole practitioner, while both Goldberger and Sanchez had founded their own firms – Goldberger Weiss and The LS Law Firm.

The letter defended Epstein’s 2008 plea deal, which saw the financier serve less than 13 months in custody after being convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.

It stated: ‘The number of young women involved in the investigation has been vastly exaggerated, there was no “international sex-trafficking operation” and there was never evidence that Mr. Epstein “hosted sex parties” at his home.’

On 3 March 2019, Karp also emailed Epstein with comments about a ‘draft motion’ – a discussion which Bloomberg has reported as relating to Epstein’s continued efforts to ensure his plea deal was not reopened.

‘The draft motion is in great shape,’ wrote Karp. ‘It’s overwhelmingly positive. Truly.’ He continued: ‘I particularly liked the argument that the “victims” lied in wait and sat on their rights for their strategic advantage, knowing you were in prison, before they came forward.’

In a statement released last week, Paul Weiss referred to Karp’s communications with Epstein as ‘a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets’, and that Karp ‘never witnessed or participated in any misconduct.’

Paul Weiss also specified that Karp originally met Epstein through his representation of Leon Black, the former chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management, ‘a significant firm client.’

Karp stepped down from his role as chair of Paul Weiss last week, though he remains a partner at the firm. In a statement, he said: ‘Recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests of the firm.’ He has been succeeded by M&A partner Scott Barshay.

The Epstein files also show that Ruemmler (pictured right), then a partner at Latham & Watkins, sent edits to another draft article, which was never published, but which Epstein was considering submitting as an op-ed to the Washington Post.

Ruemmler sent her edits in a 16 December 2018 email with the subject line: ‘My edited version.’

‘Sweetheart deal!,’ begins the op-ed. ‘So goes the attack on the resolution of a long-ago federal investigation involving our former client – and now-friend – Jeffrey Epstein.’

It continues: ‘Jeffrey was subjected to an aggressive federal intrusion into what would typically be considered a quintessentially local criminal matter in south Florida.’

‘Our nation faces vitally important challenges, many involving the treatment of women and basic human dignity. Voices are rightly being raised speaking truth to power, especially about women in the workplace. But Jeffrey, an exemplary employer, has long since been called to account by the criminal justice system for his misdeeds of yesteryear.’

Subsequent emails show Epstein discussing with Ken Starr who the article should be authored by.

Ruemmler also corresponded with Epstein on 30 November 2018, two days after investigative reporting was published in the Miami Herald which shed new light on the allegations against Epstein, his trial, and the plea deal.

The precise context of Ruemmler and Epstein’s interaction here is unclear from the files, but Epstein emailed Ruemmler on 29 November saying that ‘friends’ were encouraging him to ‘say something so they can use it to defend themselves, but that he thought ‘quiet is best’.

In a reply from Ruemmler to Epstein, she says: ‘The problem is always the same – girls were teenagers. Doesn’t matter that they were prostitutes – it’s the age… I understand the instinct of your friends, but nothing short of a full and complete mea culpa is worth doing, and legally you can’t do that – at least not now.’

Ruemmler also communicated with Epstein in March 2019, saying ‘I am worried about you’, adding ‘will need to throw real money at the problem.’

Ruemmler left Latham in 2020. She spent a year as global head of regulatory affairs at Goldman Sachs before moving into her current position as chief legal officer and general counsel. She sits on the firm’s management committee, and also serves as chair of its firmwide conduct committee.

In a statement last week, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said: ‘Kathy is an excellent general counsel and we benefit from her advice every day. Kathy has always had the support of the entire leadership team and the Board and is widely respected and admired at the firm.’

Approached for comment this week, global head of communications Tony Fratto said: ‘All our prior statements about her stand. The team here is focused on our business.’

[email protected]

Posted on

Browne Jacobson names new senior partner as DEI champion Green steps down

Browne Jacobson has appointed a new senior partner, following Caroline Green’s decision to step down after seven years in the role.

Disputes partner Jonathan Tardif (pictured above right) will take over from Green this April after being elected by the firm’s equity partners.

A Legal 500 leading partner for commercial litigation, Tardif currently heads up the firm’s business and professional risk department from its Nottingham headquarters, and also serves on the firm’s executive committee.

He joined Browne Jacobson in 2012 after stints at UK firm Geldards and Eversheds, and as senior partner, will work alongside managing partner Richard Medd (pictured above right).

Green will remain at the firm and will continue to lead the retail and supply chain sector group.

She will also maintain her involvement in setting and delivering the firm’s DEI strategy in her roles as executive DEI sponsor. Her work in this area has seen her win accolades, including being named Social Mobility Champion of the Year at the 2025 Legal 500 ESG awards.

The firm has also topped the Social Mobility Employer Index for four of the past five years, and has been the top ranked law firm for social mobility for each of those five years. The index is a benchmarking tool established by the Social Mobility Foundation in 2017 that celebrates organisations leading the way in creating inclusive workplaces which are accessible to individuals from all social backgrounds.

‘I’m very pleased to be handing over to Jonathan from 1 April,’ said Green. ‘His commercial acumen, collaborative approach and genuine commitment to our values will serve the firm exceptionally well.

‘I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved since 2019 – transforming our culture, embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into everything we do, and positioning the firm at the forefront of society’s biggest issues. Jonathan is a great person to build on these foundations.

‘The two-month transition will ensure continuity for all stakeholders, and I’m particularly excited to focus more time on transforming our retail and supply chain practice, where there are tremendous opportunities for growth as well as continuing to lead our DEI journey.’

‘I see this role as a great privilege and responsibility – an opportunity to serve our colleagues, clients and the firm’s strategic interests,’ Tardif said in a statement.

Tardif added: ‘I want to recognise Caroline Green’s extraordinary contribution. Caroline has been transformational to our approach in so many areas, but I would like to single out her role in diversity, equity and inclusion during her tenure as senior partner. I’m delighted that she will continue to drive this critical agenda in a dedicated DEI leadership role, and I’m committed to supporting and amplifying this work across the firm.’

Medd, who has been managing partner since November 2019, said: ‘Jonathan’s election demonstrates the confidence our equity partners have in his leadership and strategic vision. His track record of delivering outstanding results for clients and developing high-performing teams positions him well to follow Caroline as senior partner.’

Last year Browne Jacobson posted turnover of £137m for 2024-25, a 16% increase on the previous. The firm has enjoyed steady and consistent growth over the past decade, rising over 130% from £58.9m in 2014-15.

The firm has also been building up its presence in London, with recent hires including K&L Gates real estate partner Christian Major and Eversheds Sutherland partner Phil James, who has joined to co-lead the firm’s international data, privacy and cybersecurity group.

[email protected]

Posted on

‘A roller coaster ride’ – the twists and turns ahead for real estate in 2026

After a turbulent few years for UK real estate, with post-pandemic trends presenting fresh challenges for the commercial property market, partners working in the sector are finding new reasons for optimism.

With the UK’s ambitions to become a global leader in AI unlocking £100bn for digital infrastructure investment, the data centre surge is creating huge opportunities for real estate practices, while significant activity is also being driven by renewed interest in high-grade offices and retail spaces.

But while all of this is welcome news for commercial property partners, the sector is not totally out of the woods yet, with soft markets for secondary office stock and concerns over a potential ‘AI bubble’ serving as cause for caution.

So will these concerns shake the foundations of the sector? Or is 2026 set to be a good year to be a real estate lawyer?

‘AI is here to stay’

Victoria Landsbert, the co-head of White & Case’s global real estate group, is confident about the prospects for work driven by the AI boom. ‘Whether pricing [for data centres] will stay quite as buoyant as we’ve seen, I’m not sure, but AI is here to stay,’ she says.

Recently, Landsbert (pictured right) was part of the White & Case team which advised Cathexis Holdings on the sale of Yondr, a hyperscale data centre operator, to DigitalBridge and La Caisse – which, with a value of $5.74bn, was one of the biggest deals of the year.

One issue that real estate partners are cognisant of is the delicate balance between demand for data centres and their environmental impact. ‘They’re seen as critical infrastructure,’ says Landsbert. ‘There needs to be a balance between the environmental landscape and environmental controls, and ensuring things are powered as sustainably as possible, while servicing the needs of the globe for these technologies.’

Others concur, with CMS real estate co-head Chris Rae describing the issue as ‘a question of balance – and a question of location.’

‘New technologies mean that you can be more agnostic about where you construct, including regional locations. Usually you see development of clusters, say two or three data centres within a sort of proximity to each other,’ Rae adds.

Rae, who is based in Glasgow, has been front and centre on a number of significant developments in Scotland last year, including advising Lloyds Bank on the asset management and lease surrender of its Edinburgh data centre, as well as acting for Clydesdale Bank on the managed sale and leaseback of its two Glasgow data centres.

Rae (pictured right) says that widening the net across the UK can mitigate the environmental impact of data centres.

‘The main drivers are speed to delivery of capacity, locations with faster power connections, easier planning, proximity to end-users and interconnectors, ideally some existing infrastructure, including fibre – you can then be more relaxed about where,’ he says.

‘That’s really important, because it doesn’t then mean that it’s all about the South East so much anymore,  where power supply, timeframes for connection, and availability or use of water can be particular issues,’ Rae concludes.

UK still a safe bet

With the data centre boom at the forefront, Linklaters real estate head Andy Bruce says the UK market has grown more appealing to international investors.

‘We have noticed a real uptick in the last quarter of the calendar year – typically on investment deals. I’ve seen this in the new instructions coming in over the last few months,’ he says.

Linklaters real estate counsel Jack Shand adds that investors are well-prepared for market volatility. ‘Investors are coming in really, really well informed, and the business plans and investment strategies are increasingly sophisticated, critically analysed and stress-tested,’ he says.

The magic circle firm’s team has been handling some big mandates with big names, including advising BlackRock on a joint venture to acquire and develop data centres across the UK and Europe, while the firm also acted on the other side of the Yondr deal to White & Case, acting for DigitalBridge.

Looking to the international markets, Bruce (pictured right) says: ‘For real estate, the Middle East remains a very active region for us as a firm – you can transport the real estate expertise that we have on investment and development in the UK and apply it with our Saudi colleagues to a Saudi law situation, and help bring international best practice to a market.’

Julian Pollock, who jointly leads the real estate investment practice at HSF Kramer, cites the UK’s appeal as ‘a very safe investment’.

‘A lot of the money coming into the UK, whether that is private capital money or sovereign wealth money, is coming from the US, the Middle East and Asia,’ he says. ‘The UK is still deemed to be a very safe investment for real estate, and on the matters that I’m dealing with at the minute, the sources of money are often international – more so than actual UK investment.’

Major mandates that HSF Kramer handled for international investors last year included acting for Canada Pension Plan Investment Board on its joint venture with US company Kennedy Wilson to invest in UK single-family rental housing, as well as advising a sovereign wealth fund on a £1.2bn joint venture with The Grosvenor Estate.

Other deal highlights for the firm included advised Shaftesbury Capital on Norges Bank Investment Management’s £570m purchase of a 25% stake in the Covent Garden estate.

One area attracting renewed interest is Canary Wharf, which after losing several big names from its distinctive skyline over the last decade, is regenerating as a residential centre.

HSF Kramer is advising on all aspects of the Canada Water Masterplan, which will see the creation of 3,000 new homes, 1 million square feet of retail property and 130 acres of parks and woodland in areas within close proximity of Canary Wharf.

The area once touted as ‘Wall Street on the Thames’ is attracting renewed interest from major financial corporations including Visa, which is relocating its European office headquarters to the docklands, and JPMorgan Chase, which is constructing a new skyscraper in the area to house 12,000 of its staff.

Bruce says interest in this part of London will be beneficial to London as a whole, citing a recent ‘purple patch’ for new lettings.

‘I think Canary is going places. Their vacancy rates are low, and they’re using their capital well to refurbish their buildings – and the Square Mile isn’t big enough to hold everyone,’ Bruce adds.

Only the best will do

One key post-pandemic trend has been the widening gap in interest between A-grade spaces and secondary real estate, as companies wake up to the need to attract their staff into more luxurious facilities.

One firm that has been active in the high-end City scene is Taylor Wessing, which last year advised Park Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge on its £348m refinancing, as well as a refinancing for Arlington House properties, located behind the Ritz Hotel.

UK head of planning and energy Alistair Watson (pictured right) acknowledges that while things are tough in the capital, it’s tougher still across the country.

To address this, Watson makes the case for a more relaxed approach to regulation.

‘Most of the growth [in 2025] came from the proliferation of planning policy papers and initiatives from the UK Government,’ he says. “Build, baby build” – three easy words for the Government to say, given it relies upon the private sector to create space and place.’

For Landsbert, the inconsistencies stem from consumer demand. ‘High-end retail is an experience – a lifestyle experience. Secondary retail is still in the doldrums – but I think high-end hotels will be interesting in 2026.’

For Rae, the extremes of real estate are becoming the standard. ‘The real estate sector has been a roller coaster ride,’ he says. ‘I think everyone needs to accept that the new normal is very much a faster pace of change.’

Posted on

Top UK trio lead as NatWest snaps up Evelyn Partners for £2.7bn

Linklaters, Macfarlanes and Slaughter and May have picked up the lead roles on the £2.7bn sale of wealth manager Evelyn Partners to NatWest.

Slaughters is acting as lead counsel to NatWest, which is acquiring the business from Permira and Warburg Pincus.

Linklaters is advising Permira and Warburg Pincus, while a team at Macfarlanes is acting for longstanding client Evelyn.

Permira’s interest in Evelyn dates back to its 2014 acquisition of the regional businesses of wealth manager Tilney, which merged with Smith & Williamson in 2020 – when Warburg Pincus became a minority investor – before rebranding as Evelyn in 2022.

The acquisition by NatWest will create one of the UK’s leading private banking and wealth management businesses, combining Evelyn’s £69bn of assets under management with NatWest’s £59bn.

The Slaughters team advising NatWest included partners and associates across its corporate, financial regulation, tax, pensions, employment and incentives, competition, tech, data and IP and financing groups.

Key partners included corporate trio David Watkins, Nick Pacheco and Tom Peacock, alongside financial regulation head Jan Putnis and tax partner Dominic Robertson, a Legal 500 leading partner for corporate tax and tax litigation.

The Linklaters team advising Permira and Warburg Pincus was led by Legal 500 Hall of Famer Alex Woodward and corporate partner Chris Boycott, working with employment and incentives partner Bradley Richardson, tax partner Jamie Coomber, and Brussels-based global antitrust partner Neil Hoolihan.

The role for Linklaters comes after the firm advised Permira, Blackstone and portfolio company Adevinta on the sale of its Spanish business to EQT in mid-2025, while in 2024, Woodward led for Warburg Pincus on its £520m acquisition of a majority stake in United Trust Bank.

The team at Macfarlanes is being led by M&A partner Tom Rose, working alongside tax partner Jeremy Moncrieff, head of the rewards practice Robert Collard, pensions partner Faye Jarvis and commercial partner Rosie Duckworth.

Rose also led the firm’s team advising Evelyn in 2024 when it sold its professional services business – which was rebranded as S&W – to Apax Partners.

[email protected]

Posted on

Trading places: McGuireWoods and Morrison Foerster swipe Perkins Coie partners for Seattle launches

Perkins Coie has seen a swathe of litigation partners leave this week, including from its Seattle home office, as the firm heads towards its merger with Ashurst.

Over 20 partners have left to McGuireWoods and Morrison Foerster, with each firm launching an office in Seattle.

Former chair of business litigation at Perkins, Ulrike Connelly, leads a team of eight partners to McGuireWoods, where she joins as managing partner of the firm’s recently announced Seattle office.

Connelly, who has been at Perkins for over 15 years, will also take on the role of co-chair of business litigation at McGuireWoods.

Six partners join Connelly: Eric Wolff, Mack Shultz, Todd Rosencrans, Christopher Ledford, Daniel Ridlon and Monique Wirrick, as well as former judge Abdul Kallon.

15 partners are also moving to Morrison Foerster from Perkins, including ten in Seattle and two in San Diego. The team is led by litigation partner Brendan Murphy, who has spent nearly 20 years at Perkins, and David Perez, himself a partner for 14 years.

Also moving to MoFo in Seattle are litigation partners Zachary Davison, Mallory Gitt, Laura Hill, Megan Houlihan, Michelle Maley, Matthew Mertens, Gregory Miller, Eric Weiss, Christian Marcelo and Jillian Sommers.

Ray Hartman, Jacob Speckhard and Tara McGrath will also join MoFo from Perkins, located in its San Diego office.

Perkins, founded in Seattle before expanding across the US and internationally, announced its merger with Ashurst last year, and is expected to vote on the combination this spring.

Over in New York, Ropes & Gray has hired four restructuring partners from Fried Frank.

Led by Rachel Strickland, who will serve as global head of restructuring for Ropes, the team includes Daniel Forman, Andrew Mordkoff, and Andrew Minear.

In Houston, investment funds partner Ivana Rouse has joined Sidley Austin from Latham & Watkins, where she spent seven years in the firm’s corporate team.

Also adding to its finance practice is Haynes Boone, which has hired fund finance partner Perry Hicks into its Charlotte office. Hicks joins from Mayer Brown, where he has spent the last five years as partner.

The hire sees the firm rebuild in Charlotte after last month saw three finance partners exit as part of Paul Hastings’ launch in the city.

Cozen O’Connor has hired five insurance litigators, including three partners, from Faegre Drinker into its Philadelphia and Dallas offices this week.

Susan Engeland leads the team moving to Dallas, accompanied by Matt Sapp, as well as two associates, while Frederick Marczyk joins the Philadelphia office.

Seward & Kissel has hired John Benson as head of maritime finance from Watson Farley & Williams.

Benson, who is recognised as a Legal 500 leading partner for shipping finance, joins after 20 years at Watson.

Back in Seattle, UK based Clyde & Co opened in the city through a merger with local insurance and litigation firm Forsberg & Umlauf.

Clyde, which holds a tier 1 ranking in Legal 500’s advice to insurers US guide, brings in a team of twelve partners from Forsberg.

The combination continues Clyde’s US expansion via locally-led mergers, which have enabled the firm to open offices in LA, New York, and as of last year, Dallas.

[email protected]

Posted on

Baker McKenzie to cut business services ranks by up to 10% after global review

Baker McKenzie is set to cut hundreds of business services roles around the world, including positions in London and Belfast, following a review of its back office functions.

In a statement, the firm said it had undertaken a ‘careful review of our business professionals functions, aimed at rethinking the ways in which we work’, including its use of AI and a desire to increase efficiency, and that it was now ‘proposing a series of changes to how we operate and deliver important business services.’

It is understood that the firm expects the review to result in a headcount reduction of no more than 10% across its business professional ranks.

Bakers employs around 12,500 people across 77 offices, around half of which are business services staff, meaning that cuts of 10% would equate to as many as 600 roles.

The firm’s statement added: ‘Subject to consultation processes in applicable jurisdictions, some roles will likely be phased out, while others will evolve.’

‘We have not taken decisions around these proposed changes lightly, but felt it was necessary to deliver on our long-term plans. We appreciate the valuable contributions our impacted colleagues have made to the firm and will be supporting them.’

The firm has services centres in London and Belfast, both of which support high-volume, large-scale projects including document review, due diligence and legal research, alongside marketing and administrative roles.

It also has a large business services centre in Manila, which was established in 2000 to support the firm’s global offices in IT, HR, operations and marketing, and is one of the global firm’s largest bases.

Bakers saw turnover rise by 3.4% to $3.4bn in 2024, a smaller increase than many of its peers, with the rest of the world’s top 10 largest law firms all posting double-digit revenue increases. Profit per equity partner rose by 6% during 2024 to $2.1m.

The review marks the second major round of back office cuts for the firm in recent years, which in 2018 launched a three-year review of business services staff in a drive to improve profitability. In June 2019, the firm cut at least 46 London roles, and placed another 33 at risk.

Other major law firms have also restructured their back office teams in recent months, with Clifford Chance reviewing over 500 roles across areas including finance, HR and IT at the end of last year. The review was expected to see 50 redundancies, as well as role changes for up to 35 others.

Other firms cutting jobs include BCLP, which announced in May 2025 that it was undergoing a ‘business modernisation programme’ that would impact approximately 8% of its workforce.

[email protected]

Posted on

The Epstein files: the lessons all firms need to learn from Brad Karp’s fall from grace

Five days. Five days of journalists poring over hundreds of documents shedding light on the true extent of Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Five days of speculation about his future and five days of damaging headlines before the firm finally confirmed last night that Karp would be stepping down as chairman.

He will, however, be staying on as a partner – at least for now. After three days holed up in emergency meetings, the firm’s board seemingly concluded that while the evidence in the emails was sufficiently damning to make Karp’s leadership role untenable, with no evidence of criminality it was not serious enough for him to be forced out of the firm completely – although the need to manage his client relationships may also have been a factor here.

But while there may be no evidence of criminality or wrongdoing, there’s plenty of evidence of spectacularly poor judgement on Karp’s part, to put it mildly. And, just because something isn’t illegal or depraved,  it doesn’t mean it isn’t bad.

Less than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, the exchanges show Karp enthusiastically socialising with Epstein, as well as asking him to help his son secure a job with Woody Allen. And, even in the months before Epstein’s death in 2019, Karp appears to have been offering him personal legal advice on a draft court filing relating to his 2008 plea deal to avoid federal prosecution.

All of which, to an outsider, makes the five-day wait for decisive action from Paul Weiss and the three-day wait for Karp to even express regret for what was carefully explained away as just ‘two group dinners in New York City and a small number of social interactions by email’ look pretty long. (As an aside, it’s notable that Karp has not yet expressed any regret in relation to the suffering of the dozens of women and underage girls Epstein was charged with sexually exploiting and abusing).

This was only ever going to end one way once those emails came out.

Examples of billion-dollar law firm leaders getting caught up in scandals of anything like this magnitude are, of course, rare, as are instances of senior figures within elite firms displaying such exceptionally poor judgement. Although given the depressing insight the Epstein files offer into the extent to which men at the highest levels of society have been engaging in such sordid behaviour and blatant degradation of women, more examples would no longer be so surprising.

The truth, though, is that the storm does not need to be as big as that currently surrounding Paul Weiss for firms to be tarnished by failing to act faster.

When facing such serious reputational issues, firms need to get ahead of the problem and organise both their media response and their plan of action far more quickly. Paul Weiss will have wanted to have time to digest all the correspondence for themselves and to line up Karp’s successor, but the endgame always looked like a foregone conclusion as soon as the first stories broke.

And, in practice, the nature of this particular scandal means Paul Weiss should have known it was coming for a very long time.

Given Karp is 66 years old, there should have been plenty of opportunity even for such a popular and charismatic leader to quietly retire before the files were released.

At some point in any reputational crisis, mishandling the problem can become as serious as the problem itself. Stories don’t get smaller the longer they’re out, particularly if the crisis centres on such an emotive subject matter, so firms need to act quickly both in terms of the actions they take and the responses they provide to the press.

Law firms have come a long way since the days of MeToo, both in terms of how they operate and how they deal with the press. But it is still the case that the partnership structure can make it easier for firms to delay taking decisive action, particularly if the matter involves a powerful individual within the firm. Law firms now are the same size as large multinational corporates and, quite simply, this means they need to behave in the same way from a governance perspective.

If law firms aren’t seen to be keeping their own houses in order, how can the clients they’re advising on deals, disputes and corporate governance take them seriously and trust them?

Posted on

‘Clients don’t want a memo, they want a direct answer’ – the partner who left Big Law to set up a £1.26m PEP boutique

The boutique boom has reshaped large swathes of the London disputes market in recent years, with litigators peeling away from global firms to set up more agile, high-margin practices.

In contrast, the corporate market has remained relatively untouched, with few credible start-ups making their mark – though there are some exceptions.

For Angeli Arora, founder of corporate boutique Allectus – the winner of Boutique Law Firm of the Year at the 2025 Legal Business Awards – the imbalance reflects not a lack of opportunity, but a missed one.

Arora set up Allectus in 2023 as the sole employee and partner, a move she acknowledges ‘takes a certain personality and a certain crazy to do.’

But the gamble seems to be paying off. For its first full financial year, to March 2025, the firm posted partner profit of £1.26m, and Arora – still the firm’s sole equity partner – is expecting next year’s figure to be ‘substantially higher.’

The conviction to strike out alone, she says, was shaped by a career spent repeatedly operating in ‘start-up mode’.

After training at Linklaters, she joined US firm Bingham McCutchen, going on to spearhead the firm’s Hong Kong office launch in 2007, making partner just five and a half years after qualifying.

After her practice was absorbed by Akin as Bingham dissolved in 2014, she eventually joined Dentons, where she built its South African offering, becoming Africa lead for the global private equity practice.

In 2021 she returned to London as a partner at Mishcon de Reya, but after building platforms for big law brands for the best part of two decades, she began to ask herself: ‘can I now do this for myself?’

‘That’s never a good reason to start a firm,’ she caveats, ‘there must be a problem you are solving.’

For Arora, that problem lay at the heart of the legal offering itself. ‘It is becoming more commoditised,’ she says, ‘It’s always about chasing high volume or big deals, rolling out transactions. It’s losing that personal touch, the ability to think through complex issues and the trusted adviser role.’

‘The talent war, the salaries, the fees – there is a part of me that says: at what point does it all just explode?’

The areas of strategic advisory work that Allectus was set up to focus on, such as shareholder activism, can sit awkwardly within the large firm model. It demands heavy partner involvement, quasi-litigation strategies, and a willingness to take on big corporates – precisely the kind of work bigger firms are disincentivised from prioritising.

‘A partner is most profitable if they’ve got ten juniors underneath them – and that requires massive transactions,’ Arora says, describing the Big Law leverage model as ‘clunky’ and ‘unwieldy.’

The imbalance is also financial. Scale means a ‘high cost base,’ she continues. ‘Lawyers now have to bring in many multiples in terms of revenue to service the costs. They end up taking home a very small percentage of the work they generate.’

‘If you flip into a lower cost base, you can take home the same number from much lower revenues. Firms are focused on revenue when they should think harder about profit margin.’

Allectus was designed to operate in this gap. But Arora notes that there is ‘no point just adding another firm that does the same as everyone else to the mix,’ or ‘being the cost-effective solution.’

‘That is not what I am out there to do. I am out to be a market leader in my niche,’ she adds.

Hidden behind large brands, too many lawyers at large firms have lost confidence in their own judgement, Arora argues. ‘Clients don’t get a direct answer – they get a memo,’ she says. ‘No one will give you an assessment. Lawyers can be afraid to give opinions beyond restating what the law states.’   

Her approach takes a different tack: ‘When my clients come to me, I will tell them what I truly think,’ she says. ‘They’re coming to me for my experience, my knowledge, and that includes my viewpoint on things,’ she says. ‘It is about not being afraid to give that to your clients. It’s about giving proper answers efficiently.’

The emphasis on independent thinking underpins what Arora describes as Allectus’s ‘grown-up’ culture. In large bureaucratic structures, ‘people don’t necessarily have the freedom to embrace the lawyer they are, but rather fit into what they believe is expected of them,’ she says.

Early mandates suggest the proposition is resonating. Allectus recently advised on one of the largest shareholder activism claims in 2024, targeting natural resources giant Rio Tinto. The campaign secured c.19.35% shareholder support for her client’s resolution, far exceeding typical backing for board-opposed proposals in FTSE 100 companies – a significant result in governance terms.

Arora notes, ‘We illustrated that shareholder activism benefits from a senior-led agile approach focused on navigating complexity and strategy, rather than a scale-driven Big Law model built for volume.’

Other major corporate clients include Canadian shipbuilder Davie, which Allectus has advised on deals including its acquisition of Finnish energy company Enersense Offshore and major shipbuilding assets in Texas.

‘The biggest challenge for a partner wishing to move is ensuring they’ve got a portable book’

Running a boutique, however, comes with its own pressures. Resource constraints are constant, particularly during busy periods. ‘We just work crazily when we have to,’ she admits.

In terms of headcount, Allectus currently comprises two partners: Arora and Ian Frost, a finance partner with more than two decades of experience at Freshfields. The wider team includes senior consultant Andrew Pollard, managing associate Rupert Cullen – who has been at the firm since day one, taking the leap to start-up life after training at Akin – and South Africa qualified consultant Zinhle Hlatshwayo.

Hiring remains the greatest risk to her personality-driven formula: ‘Each hire can have a dramatic influence on the culture that I am creating. I am acutely aware that one misstep could have draconian consequences,’ she says.

But boutique life does offer its own support structures. ‘What I quickly realised is that elite boutique law firms have created a bit of an ecosystem,’ she says. Drawing on specialists, former colleagues, and local counsel across relevant jurisdictions helped her consolidate a network into what Arora describes as a ‘legal platform in itself.’

‘It’s about knowing who to call at the right time, from a talent pool of lawyers that is much broader than just those in your firm,’ she says.

Equally, client loyalty is critical. ‘The biggest challenge for a partner wishing to move is how one ensures that they’ve got a portable book,’ she says. At a large firm, lawyers can rely on institutional backing, but Arora warns this can be a ‘golden cage.’

‘There was a time where each lawyer had their own client book personal to them. That’s got lost in the big brands – and that’s intentional, because they’re creating firm clients that are separate and distinct from the lawyers serving them.’

Having the confidence to know that clients would follow her has been a major confidence-booster, but required courage. ‘The key point is to ensure that you stand by your billable rate and don’t start short-changing yourself,’ she says. ‘You have that confidence in yourself that you’re worth it.’

Looking ahead, Arora expects a multiplication of boutiques in the UK landscape, as pressure builds on mid-market full-service firms caught in between US giants and specialist firms, and this goes back to her initial point: ‘If you strive to be a market leader in whatever you’re doing, then you’ll always retain a place in the market.’

The current model of lots of juniors, she says, is not necessarily sustainable: ‘The talent war, the salaries that are getting paid, the fees being charged, and then AI coming… they’re not going to be able to sustain that model. There is a part of me that says: at what point does it all just explode?’

Arora is keen to stress that the boutique move, however, is not a retreat, particularly for women in law.

Recalling a time when being pregnant was something to be hidden at work, she is emphatic: ‘I don’t want it to be seen as women doing something ourselves because the existing legal market does not offer something suitable. That’s not the truth for me – I am incredibly grateful to my previous firms. The truth is that I believe I can create something interesting and different in the market. And I can do it more efficiently and authentically from a blank canvas. It comes from a positive place, not a negative one.’

Posted on

Revolving Doors: Three leave Taylor Wessing after merger vote, while Gibson Dunn taps Freshfields for APAC rebuild

Mayer Brown has hired City real estate duo Mark Rajbenbach and Victoria Butcher from Taylor Wessing, ahead of the UK firm’s transatlantic merger with Winston & Strawn.

Butcher joined Taylor Wessing as an associate in 2015, making partner in 2022, and has built a practice advising international clients on cross-border real estate investments, acquisitions, disposals, and financing transactions.

Rajbenbach joined Taylor Wessing in 2017 as partner following four years at Paul Hastings, where he made partner in 2014. He brings particular experience in the hotels and leisure and logistics sector, acting for clients across the US, Europe and Asia.

Dominic Griffiths, Mayer Brown London managing partner, said: ‘Mark and Victoria are highly regarded practitioners with strong profiles in complex, structured and cross‑border real estate matters. Their arrivals further strengthen our market‑leading capabilities in London and complement our global platform, particularly for private capital clients active across the UK, Europe and US.’

The moves make up the second and third partner departures since Taylor Wessing’s merger with Winston & Strawn was approved, with the two firms set to combine as Winston Taylor from May.

The first was the firm’s former head of contentious trusts, Emma Jordan, who joined Stephenson Harwood earlier this week.

Jordan served 11 years at Taylor Wessing, following stints at legacy Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co and Baker & Co.

Also in London, Skadden has tapped Latham & Watkins for international arbitration and litigation partner Samuel Pape. The news comes two weeks after Latham & Watkins co-head of international arbitration, Sophie Lamb KC, also moved to Skadden.

Pape follows Lamb after nine years at Latham, where he made partner in January 2023, having trained at Debevoise & Plimpton. He has built a practice advising on investor-state arbitrations, public international law, human rights and multi-jurisdictional litigation, representing sovereigns and business across a diverse range of sectors including banking, energy, mining, tech and infrastructure.

Elsewhere in the City, Pinsent Masons has added to its antitrust, competition and trade team with the hire of competition partner Alex Stratakis from Van Bael & Bellis.

Joining the previous firm in July 2020, Stratakis served as head of UK competition, advising large corporates on complex competition law matters across Europe.

Akin has hired leveraged finance partner Adrian Chiodo into its London office.

Chiodo joins from Covington & Burling, where he led the leveraged finance practice in Europe. Prior to this, Chiodo served nine years as partner at Latham & Watkins, followed by two at Paul Hastings.

Jones Day made three hires this week, boosting its finance bench in London with infrastructure finance partners Caroline Gregson and Nath Curtis from Osborne Clarke and Gowling WLG respectively.

Meanwhile in Frankfurt, the firm hired capital markets and public takeovers partner Christopher Wolf. Wolf previously spent 14 years at Baker McKenzie, latterly as German head of capital markets. Prior to this he was head of legal at Morgan Stanley Bank AG, spending 10 years at the company.

Back in the City, Reed Smith has strengthened its London office with the appointment of David Brennan as a partner in its global corporate group.

Brennan joins from Gowling WLG, where he was co-head of the technology sector group and partner in its equity capital markets and corporate M&A groups, acting on a broad range of fundraising matters on both issuer and bank side.

Elsewhere, contentious employment and partnership boutique Fox & Partners has tapped Howard Kennedy for litigation partner Nikki Edwards, who brings a practice focus on shareholder conflict, business fraud and corporate disputes.

In Paris, Ropes & Gray has tapped Linklaters for two senior partners, accompanied by eight associates to bolster its transactions and fund structuring offering in Europe.

Tax partner Edouard Chapellier and fund structuring partner Jonathan Abensour both had lengthy careers at Linklaters in Paris – Chapelleir a lifer at 26 years, and Abensour 15, making partner in May 2025.

The move extends the firm’s build-out in Paris, following an office opening in March 2025. The office now hosts 23 lawyers, including five partners.

Also in Paris, Proskauer has hired Laura Bavoux as a restructuring partner. Bavoux joins from French firm Franklin, where she spent over a year as an associate after five years at Weil.

In Frankfurt, Hannah Eckhoff has rejoined Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer as a partner in its disputes practice.

Eckhoff rejoins the firm where she trained, after spending seven years in the dispute resolution team at Freshfields followed by two years in-house at biotech company BioNTech, where she served as director of legal dispute resolution.

Also in Frankfurt, McDermott Will & Schulte has strengthened its bench with its hire of Norton Rose Fulbright banking and finance partner Oliver Sutter.

Sutter spent 16 years at NRF, where he led the German banking practice, following a counsel role at Freshfields. His practice focuses on acquisition, real estate, corporate financings and restructurings.

In Berlin, Baker McKenzie M&A partner Thorsten Seidel has moved to Taylor Wessing Germany, which is not included in the merger between the firm’s UK arm and Winston & Strawn, with the firm’s UK operations splitting from its international verein for the combination.

Seidel brings experience advising on cross-border M&A transactions and corporate restructurings, particularly in the chemicals, life sciences and real estate.

In Düsseldorf, Orrick has hired energy and infrastructure partner Zaid Mansour from Clifford Chance, where he spent 10 years as senior associate and then counsel.

Finally, Morgan Lewis has gone in-house for its latest European hire, bringing on Moderna vice president and head of legal regulatory strategy and global regulatory policy Alex Meier as a partner in Munich.

Over in Asia, Gibson Dunn has tapped Freshfields for a three-partner hire into its private equity and M&A practice groups in Singapore.

Nigel Gleeson was a Freshfields lifer, serving 19 years, latterly as head of Southeast Asia M&A in Singapore. He focuses on PE and M&A transactions for financial sponsors.

Jon Bowden joins following just over two years at Freshfields. Prior to this he spent 10 years as an associate at Linklaters, before making partner at White & Case, where he spent eight years. His practice includes advising clients on PE investments and cross-border M&A, notably in the finance and energy sectors.

Lastly, Alice Boughton joins Gibson Dunn as partner, having spent five years as an associate at Freshfields in London, relocating to Singapore in 2021 and making senior associate in May 2023. Prior to this, she served just over three years as associate at Slaughter and May in London.

The rebuild follows a significant trimming of partner headcount at Gibson Dunn’s Singapore office in 2024, with four partners exiting. The latest partner headcount sits at nine.

Back in London, Seward & Kissel LLP has hired John Benson into its maritime and transportation group as head of maritime finance. Benson joins Seward & Kissel from Watson Farley & Williams.

Fladgate has hired Milan Kapadia in London as the new head of its dispute resolution team.

Kapadia joins from RWK Goodman where he was partner and head of the London disputes resolution team, as well as leading the firm’s banking sector group.

Meanwhile, Browne Jacobson has made a pair of hires, bringing in Phil James from Eversheds Sutherland as head of UK data, and real estate transactions partner Christian Major from K&L Gates.

Shoosmiths has hired payments and financial services regulatory lawyer Manoj Peiris as a legal director, specialising in Web3, blockchain and payments. He joins from Woldpay, where he spent three years as senior legal counsel.

Finally, West End law firm Seddons GSC has strengthened its commercial real estate team with the arrival of consultant David Seal and solicitor Emma Clifford, both from Lawrence Stephens.

[email protected]

Posted on

Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp resigns from leadership role after Epstein revelations

Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp has resigned as chair of the firm after his longstanding connections to Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in documents released by the US Department of Justice.

Karp, who has led the firm for 18 years, has faced intense scrutiny in recent days after his communications with the late sex offender were made public in the Epstein files.

He will be replaced as chair by corporate heavyweight Scott Barshay, who has been at the firm since 2016, when he joined as global head of M&A from Cravath Swaine & Moore.

In a statement, Karp said: ‘Leading Paul Weiss for the past 18 years has been the honour of my professional life. Recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests of the firm.’

In the statement announcing the change in leadership, the firm said that Karp ‘will continue to focus his full-time attention to client service at the firm’.

Barshay said: ‘I step into this role with great confidence in Paul Weiss’ continued success. Our strength lies in the talent and dedication of our people and trusted client relationships. Clients come to Paul Weiss because we deliver excellence, and our firm is unified in our commitment to continuing to provide the highest standards of client service.’

On Karp, he added: ‘Brad has made immense contributions to Paul Weiss over his more than four decades with the firm. As chairman of the firm, he transformed Paul Weiss in an unprecedented way to the great benefit of our clients. We are grateful to him for his extraordinary dedication and service over his many years as chairman.”

The Epstein files have uncovered private emails and messages between the convicted sex offender, who died in 2019, and dozens of high profile politicians, business leaders and celebrities.

In one email chain from 2015, Karp describes Epstein as ‘amazing’ after thanking him for an ‘evening I’ll never forget.’

In an earlier statement, the firm said that Karp met Epstein through his representation of Leon Black, the former chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management, ‘a significant firm client.’

‘During the course of that representation, which spanned several years, Karp never witnessed or participated in any misconduct. Karp attended two group dinners in New York City and had a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets,’ the statement added.

Documents are being periodically released by the DOJ following the passing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act at the end of last year.

Karp has worked at Paul Weiss since he graduated Harvard Law School in 1983, practising in its litigation team. He served as chair of Paul Weiss’ litigation department until 2008, when he was elected as chairman.

At the beginning of last year, Karp was embroiled in controversy as he led Paul Weiss into negotiations with President Trump after executive orders to terminate federal contracts with the firm were announced.

Paul Weiss became the first firm to negotiate a deal with Trump to lift the order, and agreed to provide $40m pro bono support to the administration. Skadden and Willkie also signed similar deals.

After the deal was announced Karp defended his actions in a message to colleagues, where he described the executive orders as an ‘existential crisis.’

[email protected]

Posted on

Paul Weiss launches Houston office with Kirkland corporate duo

Paul Weiss has opened an office in Houston, led by two corporate partners from Kirkland & Ellis, with one joining as co-chair of global M&A.

Sean Wheeler, a Legal 500 leading partner for energy transactions: oil and gas, will serve as head of the new office as well as global M&A co-chair. He joins Paul Weiss after more than seven years at Kirkland.

Debbie Yee, also an energy-focused M&A partner at Kirkland, will also join the firm.

Prior to Kirkland, the pair spent time as partners at Latham & Watkins, where Wheeler was co-chair of the firm’s oil and gas industry team. Wheeler left for Kirkland in 2018, and Yee followed him a year later, in 2019.

The partners bring with them experience across energy and infrastructure deals, with notable recent work including advising Marathon Oil Corporation on its $22.5bn sale to ConocoPhillips in 2024.

Scott Barshay, chair of Paul Weiss’ corporate practice, said of Wheeler: ‘Sean is the country’s most talented and accomplished deal lawyer in the energy space.’

‘He is the ideal leader to spearhead our expansion into Houston,’ he added.

Paul Weiss joins several other firms that have expanded their footprint with a Houston base, as Sullivan & Cromwell opened its own office there at the start of the year with the hire of Patrick Lingwall, also from Kirkland.

The move comes amidst a spate of activity in Houston, in particular in the energy sector, with the recent $58bn merger of Devon Energy and Corterra Energy creating a new mega-shale operator headquartered in the city.

In a statement, Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp said: ‘Houston is a booming business epicenter that is home to many of our clients.’

He continued: ‘Houston’s dynamic business environment, world-class energy sector and rapidly diversifying economy make it an ideal market for the next step in our firm’s growth trajectory.’

For Paul Weiss, the move is another step in an ongoing wave of expansion that has seen the New York-headquartered firm make significant partner hires since the 2023 London push that has seen it become one of the fastest growing firms in the City.

The news comes as the firm has been embroiled in controversy this week, with newly released files showing communications between Karp and disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

In a statement from the firm, Karp expressed his regret for his relations with Epstein and denied any misconduct.

[email protected]

Posted on

Taylor Wessing accounts reveal £10m pay for top earner

Taylor Wessing‘s accounts have revealed that its best-paid partner received more than £10m during 2024-25, as the firm gears up for its transatlantic merger with Winston & Strawn.

The limited liability partnership (LLP) filing for the year to 30 April 2025 comes after partners at both firms voted through their transatlantic merger, with the newly combined Winston Taylor set to go live this May.

The accounts state that ‘the profit attributable… to the member with the largest entitlement was £10,387,583’ – up 34% from the previous year’s top figure of £7,750,000.

Revenue for the LLP, which includes the firm’s UK business, as well as subsidiary undertakings and joint ventures in the US, Ireland, Israel and a branch in Dubai, rose by 15% to £281.5m, up from £244.7m the previous year.

Profit before tax for the LLP was up by 18.5%, from £98.2m to £116.3m.

The firm, which operates under an international verein model, last summer reported total global revenues of £526m for 2024-25. However, the merger with US firm Winston will see Taylor Wessing’s UK business split from the verein, with the French and German arms of the firm retaining the Taylor Wessing brand and operating under a cooperation and referral arrangement.

While Taylor Wessing’s UK profit per equity partner (PEP) figure of £1.1m is significantly lower than Winston’s 2024 PEP of $3.5m (£2.6m), the top earner figure of £10.4m does indicate the the firm already has capacity to suitably reward its best performers.

The accounts also show that staff costs increased by 11% from £92.2m to £102.4m, in part due to an increase in headcount. Total staff increased by 5.4% from 797 to 840, while the number of fee earners increased marginally from 379 to 386.

The accounts state that ‘total remuneration for key management personnel’ was £10.7m, up from £9.3m, without specifying who key management personnel included.

A breakdown of revenue by region was also not disclosed, with the accounts stating that: ‘The board considers that such a disclosure would be prejudicial to the interest of the group.’

At the same time, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (HSFK) has also released its UK LLP accounts for 2024-25, the final full year before the transatlantic merger of Herbert Smith Freehills and Kramer Levin, which went live on 1 June last year.

The accounts show a revenue increase of 4% to £1.346bn, and on operating profit of £477.6m, up 9% from £438m.

Last July the firm reported that PEP had grown by 8.6% to £1.428m.

Staff costs increased by 6.5% to £649.1m, as the average number of staff employed during the year rose by 3.3% to 4,566.

The best-paid partner, ‘inclusive of other benefits and payments’, received £3.3m, up 10% from £3m.

The share of profits and salaries awarded to key management personnel – which includes the global CEO, regional and practice leadership, CFO, chief people officer and chief client officer – was £11.3m, up from £8.2m in 2024.

The accounts also provide a breakdown of revenue, with the firm’s UK and US offices contributing 48.5%, marginally down from 49.2% last year. Revenues from Australia inched up from 28% to 28.6%, while Continental Europe, Middle East and Africa was up from 14% to 14.8%. Asia saw a slight dip from 8.8% of total revenue to 8.2%.

The HSFK merger, which went live in June 2025, just seven months after the deal was first announced in November 2024, has created a firm with around 630 partners across 26 offices. Based on Kramer Levin’s account filings early in 2025, the merged firm will have projected revenues of around £1.7bn ($2.3bn), placing it on the fringes of the top 20 firms in the world by turnover.

[email protected]

Posted on

Gibson Dunn and Sullivan & Cromwell lead $1.25trn SpaceX merger to takeoff

Gibson Dunn and Sullivan & Cromwell have advised on the combination of SpaceX and xAI, two companies privately owned by Elon Musk.

The deal creates a company with a joint enterprise value of $1.25trn, and comes amid reports that Musk may take SpaceX public later this year, in what could become the largest IPO in history, estimated to raise up to $50bn.

Gibson Dunn advised Texas-headquartered SpaceX, with a team featuring some of the firm’s most senior lawyers, including global M&A co-chairs Robert Little and George Sampas in Dallas and New York, alongside capital markets co-chair Hillary Holmes, who co-heads the Houston office.

The team also included corporate, tax, competition, trade and finance partners across Palo Alto, Washington DC and Brussels, with newly promoted competition partner Alana Tinkler representing the London office.

S&C acted for xAI throughout the merger, with a team led by Palo Alto co-managing partner and tech M&A head Mike Ringler and M&A partner Peter Jones.

The firm’s team spanned Palo Alto, Washington DC and New York, with London involvement including antitrust co-head Juan Rodriguez.

Gibson Dunn also advised SpaceX on its September 2025 acquisition of satellite company EchoStar’s full portfolio, valued at $17bn, with Sampas and Little also on the deal team.

For its part, S&C has also worked with other Musk companies in the past, including representing Tesla before the Delaware Supreme Court, where it successfully reinstated the ten-year incentive compensation plan for the CEO last December.

In a statement regarding the merger, Musk said that the combination will allow faster growth for AI, as he plans to build data centres on the moon.

Musk said: ‘My estimate is that within two to three years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.’

‘This cost-efficiency alone will enable innovative companies to forge ahead in training their AI models and processing data at unprecedented speeds and scales, accelerating breakthroughs in our understanding of physics and invention of technologies to benefit humanity,’ he added.

[email protected]

Posted on

Outgoing Unilever GC set to take up top legal role at Rolls-Royce

Unilever’s chief legal officer is leaving the company at the end of the month to take up the top legal post at British aerospace and defence giant Rolls-Royce.

Maria Varsellona joined Unilever in 2022, after holding several senior legal roles in-house. She will start her new post as chief legal officer at fellow FTSE 100 company Rolls-Royce on 1 March.

Her move to Rolls-Royce comes as the company’s long-serving GC, Mark Gregory, prepares to step down.

Before joining Unilever, Varsellona was GC at Zurich-headquartered electrical engineering company ABB group, having previously spent nearly seven years in senior roles at Finnish telecoms company Nokia. In addition, Varsellona, who began her career in private practice at Greco Law firm,  previously worked at packaging companies Swedish Tetra Pak and Sidel, before joining Unilever.

Gregory has been at Rolls-Royce for more than 20 years, becoming GC in 2015. During this time, he has helped steer the company’s legal team through everything from a high profile Serious Fraud Office investigation, which ultimately led to one of the first ever UK Deferred Prosecution Agreements, a rights issue, to its recent FTSE turnaround as part of CEO Tufan Erginbilgic’s exec team. He is due to leave Rolls Royce at the end of March.

In a post on LinkedIn Gregory said: ‘I’ve had the privilege of serving as General Counsel for over 10 years, working alongside some incredible people, and helping to navigate through some pretty complex and challenging times…
I am going to take some time with my family and friends, reset, and then go again on new adventures.’

Speaking of her move Varsellona commented: ‘After four wonderful years at Unilever, I have decided to step down as Chief Legal Officer at the end of February. It has been a true privilege to support Unilever’s transformation and to work alongside such exceptional colleagues.’

She continued: ‘I have recently found a new source of great inspiration and excitement: On 1st March I will be joining Rolls‑Royce as Chief Legal Officer. It is an iconic company with a remarkable record of excellence, and I look forward to this next chapter and to collaborating with my new colleagues.’

During her time at the helm, Unilever, which owns brands including Dove, Hellmann’s and TRESemmé,  has carried out a number of significant transactions. At the end of last year, Linklaters and Skadden advised as Unilever spun out popular ice-cream business The Magnum Ice Cream Company for $9.2bn. In 2022, the group completed the sale of its tea business, ekaterra, to CVC Capital Partners for €4.5bn advised by Linklaters, while last year the group acquired personal care brand Wild for £230m and men’s personal care brand Dr. Squatch for $1.5bn.

Prakash Kakkad is set to replace Varsellona in the top legal role at Unilever.  Kakkad joined Unilever at the end of 2023 as GC corporate governance & group corporate legal, before being promoted to GC corporate and deputy group secretary nine months later. Kakkad joined the group from Australian mining company BHP, where he served as head of governance -global for two and a half years. Kakkad also worked at Barclays between 2018 and 2021, having joined from the corporate department at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, where he began his career.

[email protected]

Posted on

Pinsent Masons opens in Warsaw with six-partner team

Pinsent Masons is opening in Warsaw, the firm announced today (3 February), with six new partners hired from DLA Piper, Dentons, Greenberg Traurig, and CMS.

The move, which sees the firm open its ninth office in continental Europe, alongside bases in France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and the Netherlands, will see Pinsents establish a presence in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for the first time.

The new office will be led by real estate partner Bartłomiej Kordeczka and corporate partner Jakub Marcinkowski.

A Legal 500 leading partner for real estate in Poland, Kordeczka joins from Dentons, where he co-led the Warsaw real estate practice and served as office managing partner from 2023 to 2025.

He joined legacy Salans in 2011 before the Paris-headquartered firm merged with legacy SNR Denton and legacy Fraser Milner Casgrain to form Dentons in 2013.

Meanwhile, Marcinkowski joins from DLA Piper, where he was co-head of the Poland corporate and M&A practice. He spent 12 years at CMS before moving to DLA in 2019, and advises leading CEE clients on a range of M&A, PE, and venture capital transactions.

He is also recognised as a leading partner by Legal 500, for private equity.

Among the six hires are a further two senior partners from Dentons: construction practice co-head Piotr Staniszewski, and banking and finance practice co-head Bartosz Nojek.

The exits leave Dentons with 11 partners in Warsaw in both its real estate and banking and finance practices, according to the firm’s website.

Dentons’ real estate team will be continue to be led by former co-head Piotr Szafarz, while Bartosz Nojek has been replaced as co-head of banking and finance by Tomasz Zwolinksi, who will lead alongside current head Mark Segall.

Also joining Pinsents are M&A partner Blazej Zagorski, formerly leader of the German desk practice at CMS, and real estate partner Maciej Jodkowski from Greenberg Traurig.

The move sees Pinsents follow Addleshaw Goddard, which entered the Polish legal market last year with its acquisition of Linklaters’ Warsaw office, also citing plans for further CEE expansion.

Andrew Masraf, senior partner at Pinsents said of the move: ‘Further scaling up our capabilities in Europe in order to meet the evolving needs of our clients remains a strategic objective for us. Poland, as one of Europe’s most resilient and dynamic economies, adds a valuable component to our pan-European offering. It is a key market for a number of our clients, particularly those in Western Europe, and remains an important investment destination in Central and Eastern Europe.’

Marcinkowski added: ‘Warsaw serves as a strategic base for managing English-law governed transactions across CEE, with substantial demand for M&A, banking and real estate services. Our founding team brings extensive experience in all of these areas, setting us in excellent stead to integrate with Pinsent Masons multi-national network and deliver against both local and international client needs.’

The office is set to open by mid-2026.

Pinsent Masons has confirmed that further hires are soon to follow, as founding partners will look to build out their teams.

[email protected]

Posted on

Skadden and Gibson Dunn lead on $58bn oil and gas merger

Skadden and Gibson Dunn have advised US listed companies Devon Energy and Coterra Energy on one of the biggest mergers in the oil and gas industry.

The $58bn deal combines the Oklahoma City-headquartered Devon with Houston’s Coterra under the Devon Energy brand, creating ‘a premier shale operator’, according to Devon CEO Clay Gaspar.

Skadden advised Devon on the merger, fielding a team led by M&A partners Steve Gill, Mingda Zhao and Emery Choi in Houston, and Dohyun Kim and Elizabeth Gonzalez-Sussman in New York.

The firm’s New York team also includes executive compensation and benefits head Erica Schohn and fellow partner Joseph Penko, as well as Michael Hong (capital markets), Steven Messina (finance) and Trevor Allen (tax), alongside North American antitrust head David Wales in Washington DC.

Gibson Dunn look the lead for Coterra, with a team led by capital markets co-chair Hillary Holmes and M&A partner Tull Florey in Houston, as well as M&A partner Andrew Kaplan in New York.

Houston-based oil and gas co-chair Rahul Vashi and finance partner Shalla Prichard also acted on the deal, working with Dallas office co-head Krista Hanvey, who co-chairs the firm’s employee benefits and executive compensation practice, as well as Washington DC antitrust partner Joshua Lipton.

The deal has been unanimously approved by both companies and is expected to close in Q2 of this year.

The combined company will be headquartered in Houston, and together will own 746,000 acres in the Delaware Basin, an oil-rich region across West Texas and Southern New Mexico.

This deal comes two years after another major oil and gas merger, the $26bn combination of Diamondback Energy and Endeavor Energy Partners, a deal which handed roles to Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, Paul Weiss and Vinson & Elkins.

Oil prices have fluctuated recently amid tensions between the US and Iran, with US President Donald Trump hinting at military intervention.

Since then Trump has stated that negotiations with Iran have made progress, and when markets opened on Monday, oil prices dropped by 4%.

[email protected]

Posted on

Paul Weiss chair expresses regret over Epstein connections after email revelations

Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp has expressed regret over his connections to Jeffrey Epstein after communications between the pair were revealed in a extensive release of files relating to the late sex offender.

More than three million pages, images and videos were released by the US Department of Justice on Friday (30 January), after the Epstein Files Transparency Act mandating their release was signed into law last year.

The files contain hundreds of references to Karp, who has led Paul Weiss for 18 years, including an email chain from 2015 in which he refers to Epstein as ‘amazing’ and thanks him for an ‘evening I’ll never forget.’

In the email conversation – which took place seven years after Epstein was first jailed for sex offences, including one charge relating to a minor – Karp (pictured) describes his time at Epstein’s house as ‘truly “once in a lifetime” in every way.’

He goes on to say: ‘I hope to be invited again… you are an extraordinary host.’

Karp’s name appears over 500 times in emails and messages, although many of the references come from duplicated email chains.

Karp’s messages to Epstein include a 2014 request for his daughter to accompany him to a film screening with controversial director Woody Allen, while in 2016, Karp reached out to Epstein on behalf of his son, who wanted to work with Allen on film projects.

In a statement, Paul Weiss said: ‘As has been previously reported, Brad Karp met Jeffrey Epstein through his representation of the former chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management, a significant firm client.’

‘During the course of that representation, which spanned several years, Karp never witnessed or participated in any misconduct. Karp attended two group dinners in New York City and had a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets.’

Karp’s communications with Epstein also include messages relating to ex-Latham & Watkins managing partner Bill Voge and Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, the former global chair of Latham’s white collar defence and investigations practice.

When news of Voge’s shock resignation from Latham broke in March 2018, after he admitted to ‘communications of a sexual nature’, Karp emailed Epstein, saying ‘I really liked Bill Voge’. The following day, Epstein emailed back, asking: ‘Should Ruemmler be chairman of the firm?’.

Karp replied: ‘Kathy would be great and it would be perceived very positively by the marketplace. There are two downsides: (1) the job is truly 24/7 and the demands (travel, client/partner management) of running a global firm like Latham make my job look like a breeze, and (2) related to the demands, it will be impossible for Kathy to practice law.’

‘So my view, Kathy taking this on would be a real mitzvah for Latham, but at a huge personal/professional cost to Kathy.’

Voge was subsequently succeeded as Latham chair and managing partner by corporate partner Richard Trobman, while Ruemmler moved to Goldman as partner and global head of regulatory affairs in 2020, before being promoted to GC in 2021.

The emails also contain email correspondence from Ruemmler (pictured). After a Christmas Day 2015 message in which Epstein asked his assistant to organise a trip for her, Ruemmler says in a subsequent email: ‘Jeffrey is just being wonderful Jeffrey… I adore him. It’s like having an older brother!’

In one email to Epstein in 2019, Ruemmler said: ‘Am totally tricked out by Unc=e Jeffrey today! Jeffrey boots, handbag and watch!’

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in 2023, Ruemmler said she regretted ever knowing Epstein. The disgraced financier was arrested in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking. He died in prison a month later.

Karp and Epstein also remained in contact up to 2019. In February that year, Epstein emailed Karp and said: ‘if your buddy Kraft, needs local palm rep. let me know.’

At the time, Kraft Group billionaire Robert Kraft had been arrested in Florida along with 24 other individuals on the charges of soliciting prostitution. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were dropped a year later.

Karp had replied to Epstein: ‘I’m sure he’ll need the best there is.’

In the same email chain, Karp later said to Epstein: ‘Another person, former Pres of Citi, John Havens, just called and needs immediate help.’

Havens, the former president and COO of Citigroup, was one of the others charged along with Kraft in 2019. Both denied the allegations and the charges were later dropped.

In April 2019, Epstein also messaged Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former political chief strategist, and said: ‘Need to work magic to get Brad Karp admitted to Augusta Golf Club.’

Bannon replied: ‘The head of Paul Weiss Brad Karp?’

Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia is the home of the Masters Tournament, and membership is invite-only. Members include the likes of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

[email protected]