US firm Locke Lord has continued its rapid expansion in London since launching in February this year with the addition of three more lateral hires within a few weeks.
The arrival of Mayer Brown reinsurance litigator Ian McKenna at the end of October was followed by the hire of Fox Williams’ corporate finance partner James Channo and Mishcon de Reya’s former head of finance, Luke Morris, in November.
Continue reading “Locke Lord’s lateral spree continues in London”
US firm Katten Muchin Rosenman remains on the charge in London following the hire of tax partner Sanjay Mehta from Stephenson Harwood in August. The latest hire comes at the end of a highly acquisitive year that has seen the Chicago-based firm make five lateral hires in six months.
This follows a triple hire to Katten’s real estate team in July, which included Stephen John as special counsel and Ranjeev Kumar as partner from the London office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, alongside Joe Payne from Field Fisher Waterhouse.
Continue reading “Katten Muchin Rosenman continues hiring spree”
With troubled US firm Dewey & LeBoeuf on the brink of collapse, a number of firms have already stepped in to boost their City offerings by providing homes to small groups of partners. Twenty-four of the firm’s 33 London partners had plans to leave the firm at press time.
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius has emerged as the most acquisitive firm in London, taking six former Dewey partners in the capital, including its former London managing partner Peter Sharp.
Continue reading “Rival firms benefit from imminent Dewey collapse in City”
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has ruffled Allen & Overy (A&O)’s feathers in London after the US litigation specialist hired the Magic Circle firm’s global arbitration chairman Stephen Jagusch and fellow partner Anthony Sinclair in May. The firms are understood to be locking horns over the departure terms, with a deal yet to be struck.
The hires will see Quinn Emanuel launch its own City arbitration practice, to be led by Jagusch. While the firm has already had some success in arbitration work in London, it plans to grow the office to 35 lawyers, of which ten will be partners.
Continue reading “Quinn Emanuel snags A&O London arbitration duo”
On the face of it, news that Bristol-based TLT is to open simultaneously in Scotland, by acquiring niche firm Anderson Fyfe, and also in Belfast, by hiring a small team of local lawyers, is hardly earth-shattering.
But while the news may be dominated by major international firms’ expansion plans in Asia, or even significant full-scale tie-ups such as McGrigors and Pinsent Masons, you could argue that, relatively speaking, low-key moves such as TLT’s make better strategic sense for all concerned.
Jones Day, one of the largest law firms in the Global 100 by headcount, is most commonly recognised for its US strengths, but John Phillips, partner-in-charge of the London office, says the firm is keen to expand its UK offering: ‘We have to develop in London and turn it into a main office. The plan is to recruit more people, more lateral hires.’
Continue reading “Jones Day keen to boost London headcount after departures”
Shearman & Sterling’s loss is Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom’s gain after Stephan Hutter, Germany’s pre-eminent capital markets specialist, swapped one US firm for another in February.
Hutter joined Skadden’s Frankfurt office along with fellow partner Katja Kaulamo, gifting the firm the German capital markets capability it has sought for so long.
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has hired former Stephenson Harwood chief executive and litigation heavyweight Sunil Gadhia in its London office, marking a growing trend of US firms bulking up City disputes practices.
Gadhia is set to join Cleary’s London outpost this year after 15 years as a partner at Stephenson Harwood, of which he spent six as chief executive.
Continue reading “Cleary hires former Stephenson Harwood chief executive”
With a flurry of US firms luring funds partners from UK rivals, LB finds out why lawyers in this area are hot property.
Periodically the City goes through a feeding frenzy of lateral hires. In the past, firms have gobbled up partners in structured finance, restructuring and litigation. The current plat du jour though, is funds.
Intellectual property is the trophy practice for many firms in 2011. LB examines the current popularity of IP at law firms and the story behind a spate of lateral hires in the past year
Whisper it, but for the global legal community the demise of Howrey brought two pieces of good news. First, its collapse meant a credible competitor had fallen away in the areas of intellectual property (IP), litigation and antitrust. The other bonus was that a number of excellent IP specialists were suddenly on the market. While Howrey’s decline has been well documented, the speed with which other firms scooped up many of the survivors is worth noting.
