Weekly Update - 15th May 2023
Fides Search
Partner Search for Professional Services & In-House Legal, Co-Sec and Compliance, Financial Crime and Privacy Search
Moves:
UK & Ireland
The firm has strengthened its London white-collar and regulatory practice with the addition of David Rundle, a former criminal barrister who spent almost a decade at U.S. firm Wilmer Hale, where he was counsel.
Peter Coles is currently based in Hong Kong and will be relocating back to London to rejoin HFW.
Global loans partner Helen Burton, whose term as Ashurst’s London managing partner started on May 1, succeeds previous London leader Logan Mair, who was first appointed to the role alongside EMEA contentious financial services head Lynn Dunne back in 2021.
Cooley has strengthened its life sciences practice with the addition of a veteran partner from U.S. rival firm Covington & Burling. Corporate partner Simon Amies, who brings over 25 years experience, joins after more than twenty years at Covington, having first made partner at the firm in 2006, according to his LinkedIn profile.
EMEA
Reed Smith has added two lawyers to its Munich office from McDermott Will & Emery, including the latter’s former head of private equity in Germany, as well as the founder of McDermott’s Germany branch. Partner Nikolaus von Jacobs joins as a partner in the firm’s Munich office, along with veteran ex-partner Christian von Sydow, who joins as senior counsel.
APAC
Priscilla Wong, most recently a counsel at Loeb & Loeb Hong Kong, has joined Ince’s Hong Kong partnership as a dispute resolution partner in its Hong Kong bench, suggesting the Asia arm of the ailing U.K.-headquartered firm may forge its own path.
One of Greater China's best-known IP lawyers, Bai joined Amber a year ago from Ant Group, where he was head of the company’s intellectual property legal team, and previously worked at Allen & Overy and Jones Day.
With McKiernan’s joining, Steptoe will now count three partners in Hong Kong, one of whom is dually based. Steptoe & Johnson has added two investigations lawyers from Shearman & Sterling’s Hong Kong practice. The firm has added Brian Burke and Cáitrín McKiernan as partners to its investigations and white-collar crime practice.
Kirkland’s restructuring partner Jacqueline Tang will become Sullivan’s fourth partner in Hong Kong.
Holman Fenwick Willan is expanding its Australian employment practice with the hire of partner Simon Billing to its Perth office. Billing has over 30 years of employee relations experience both as a legal practitioner in private practice and employee relations consultant.
The Americas
The law firm continues to be active in the lateral market, even in practice areas that aren’t firing on all cylinders right now. Its latest lateral partner hire is M&A lawyer Jon Kubek.
Adam Hickey, who was a deputy assistant attorney general with the DOJ's National Security Division, noted that the government "has really strengthened its position on data security and data privacy."
New hires, promotions and awards from across the California legal market.
As the market for renewable energy continues to grow, Perkins Coie has hired two K&L Gates partners who were the firm’s renewable energy practice leads: Portland-based Elizabeth Crouse and San Francisco-based Buck Endemann, the firm said Friday. The duo officially started on May 10.
Adam Sowatzka, who spent the past decade with King & Spalding, joins several others who made the switch between the two firms in recent years.
Three lawyers from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan’s private client group are heading to McDermott Will & Emery, including the chair of the practice, McDermott said Thursday. The group includes New York-based Anita Rosenbloom, who led Stroock’s private client services group, as well as partner Jay Scharf (Miami) and counsel John Kiely (New York). Rosenbloom said the group is also bringing two fiduciary accountants and an administrator from its team at Stroock.
Self-proclaimed “startup whisperer” James Smedley and fellow intellectual property attorney Alex Korona have joined New Jersey-based McCarter & English’s Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey, offices as partners in the firm’s IP practice.
Latham partner Shagufa Hossain joined Kirkland's D.C. office, following Rachel Sheridan. Kirkland's capital markets talent grab is the latest in a series of partner moves between the two highest-grossing law firms.
"Whether it's venture capital or private equity, sophisticated investors want to be in South Florida and it goes throughout industries," said incoming Greenspoon Marder partner Jon Lyman. "There's a lot of interesting work going on."
Mergers & Alliances:
Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and Nixon Peabody are discussing a merger between the firms, targeting this summer for announcing the combination publicly, sources with independent knowledge of the talks say.
领英推荐
Office Openings & Closing:
The firm, which has offices in the U.K., Asia, the Middle East and Europe, is letting go of 55 attorneys and 43 business professionals, including a "redundancy" process that has begun in London.
This is the latest company to join the ranks of other e-discovery and legal tech companies who have announced layoffs in recent months.
Partner Jody Wade said he expected the Savannah office "to grow exponentially in lawyers and staff" with the move.
"Massive opportunities" prompted Berger Montague’s foray into the Canadian market, the firm said. In the latest instance of a U.S. law firm looking to the Canadian market for growth, plaintiffs class action and commercial litigation firm Berger Montague has opened an office in Toronto.
Financials:
Among its investments, the intellectual property specialty firm opened an office in Munich. Between its offices in Munich and London, the firm said it now has more than 25 IP professionals in Europe, where the Unified Patent Court is set to open this summer, providing work for IP lawyers.
The firm saw success with a mix of litigation, white-collar and restructuring work. "With the economy headed the way it's headed, we are well-positioned," said chairman Vince Guglielmotti.
Just as financial services and IP litigation has helped Quinn grow to more than 40 attorneys in Boston, several other Am Law 200 are circling the market, interested in life sciences, private equity and transactional work.
The two firms finally decided to match rivals on salaries last week but have they lost out after a year of being behind?
Technology & Innovation:
“You can ban it on company equipment but you can't ban it on other devices that employees might be using. It would be like banning email, or Google search, or a reticence to using the Google enterprise suite of products," said Nithya Das, former chief legal officer of Olo.
“Data regulation in Europe is not so complicated, but it’s not so easy, either,” said Marc Mossé, senior counsel at the French firm August Debouzy and a former attorney at Microsoft.
Attorney Matt Q. Wetherington uses the technology to field incoming prospective client calls, for document creation and summarization tasks. He also thinks GPT could revolutionize depositions.
The Anglo-French partnership comes amid increasing demand from in-house teams for legal technology.
The increasing political, legal, scientific and media focus on the risks of artificial intelligence (“AI”) provides a new opportunity for the chief legal officer to support the role of corporate governance. Indeed, a series of recent developments focusing on the risks of AI have also added a sense of urgency to clarifying the board’s oversight obligations.
One supposes that criminal lawyers are often dentist-like in their professional undertakings— trying to “extract” truth from clients, witnesses and even prosecutors. Are we, however, immune from substitution by designated hitters who can hit the ball out of the park digitally?
Diversity & Inclusion:
Advocates hope the move will narrow the pay differential between men and women.
The firm's head of responsible business said that the topic of partner retirement was "shrouded in some mystery and behind door conversations, and we wanted to change that".
Market Commentary:
Attracted by high yield spreads with Japan’s low interest rates, many global private equity funds are building out their teams to incorporate real estate into their strategy.
'What if this quietness means that I'm actually just dead weight that the firm needs to get rid of. That kind of thinking works its way into your bones.' ‘Aligning staffing with levels of demand’. That was the reason Dechert gave last week for its decision to reduce its global workforce by 5%. The figures tally up: earlier this year, the firm posted a 15% profit dip, so it’s time to get the house in order.
Precarious law firm partnerships have been disrupted by pandemic-era working conditions, industry consultants, recruiters and firm leaders have observed. New alliances have been formed across offices at the expense of the ties that used to bind lawyers with regular office attendance.
Lawyers and aspiring lawyers in the generation showed significantly more desire to work in-house, while the interest to go into government stayed consistent, according to a new survey.
Republican lawmakers like Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis have targeted the concept as they lean into culture war issues, but clients’ demands for advice haven’t ceased.