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.
With the City’s law firms bogged down by plummeting profits and disaffected partners, the Americans have seized the chance to hire some serious big cheeses. Here, LB names our top ten laterals of the year
If you thought one of the most turbulent 12-month periods that the legal market has ever seen would result in partners hunkering down and getting on with whatever work they could find, then think again. Since our last Global London survey a year ago, no fewer than 64 partners have opted to up sticks and join US firms on this side of the Atlantic, and not all of them were moving because they were pushed.
