Weekly Update - 22nd April 2024
Fides Search
Partner Search for Professional Services & In-House Legal, Co-Sec and Compliance, Financial Crime and Privacy Search
Moves:
UK & Ireland
Karen McMaster, a restructuring partner, has joined the firm, which plans to formally merge with Shearman & Sterling in May.
Alex McGregor, a highly accomplished ESG litigation and regulatory lawyer, has joined Dentons' Disputes team in London. Alex joins the firm as a partner from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in the UK, having begun his legal career in Australia.
Seamus White, a legal director, has joined the Injury Risk team; Lisa Kelly and Feena Robinson, senior associates, have joined the Specialist Insurance team; and Sinead Morgan, legal director, has joined the Employment Team.
Gibson Dunn has announced the employment of former Linklaters partner David Irvine in London to co-chair its global finance practice.
?
EMEA
McDermott announced that its Paris tax practice now employs ten attorneys, including four partners, one counsel, and five associates.
Geradin Partners, which opened offices in Brussels in 2015, London in 2021, and Amsterdam in 2023, continues its European development with the opening of its Paris office today, thanks to the hiring of former EU official and competition lawyer Marc Barennes and his team.
Martin Diesbach, Elisabeth Noltenius, and Julia Schafdecker, media and entertainment partners at SKW Schwarz, will join Fieldfisher's Berlin office, as will a four-person IP team managed by partner Sascha Pres and IP litigators Christina Kufer, Tien Nguyen, and Laura Krug.
?
APAC
Melinda Upton, an intellectual property lawyer, has joined Deloitte's Australian legal team as a partner.
Troy Doyle is departing, citing customer needs for real flexible pricing structures and experienced partner engagement in restructuring cases.
Divest Patel, a former partner in Johnson Winter Slattery's private equity and M&A practice divisions, holds dual qualifications in Australia and South Africa.
Nicole Wearne, Ganga Narayanan, and Mark Attard, insurance partners, are the latest prominent lawyers to quit Clyde & Co.
Ravi de Fonseka and Daniel Thompson have joined from Australian business Johnson Winter Slattery.
Yohei Nakagawa and Beelee Seah, who were both made partners last year, are leaving Morrison Foerster and Baker McKenzie, respectively.
?
The Americas
Stephen Shore stated that the global labour and employment giant's drive towards expansion was one of the factors that drew him to the company.
Alyssa Caridis, co-head of Orrick's IP business unit, about Irena Royzman noted "We see her as another game-changing addition to our growing national team handling cutting-edge cases,".
Liberty McAteer has returned as a partner at Moses & Singer's intellectual property, AI, and data law divisions, while John M. Nolan III has joined Margolis Edelstein's employment practices liability group.
Lamb McErlane has announced the addition of Curtis L. Sebastian to its municipal law department.
Jacqui Bogucki, an infrastructure partner from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, has joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges as a partner in Houston as the firm expands its energy and infrastructure practice.
Thompson Coburn expanded its higher education business with four lateral additions, including the construction of a new office in Birmingham, Alabama. The presence of partners Tres Cleveland, Brandt Hill, and Evan Moltz in Birmingham, as well as Roger Swartzwelder in Washington, D.C., has prompted widespread coverage by legal media organizations.
Daniel Besikof worked as the deputy chairman of Loeb & Loeb's bankruptcy group.
Tracey Zaccone and Justin Rosenberg joined Simpson from Paul Weiss last year.
Ann Kashishian joined Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith's Wilmington office as a partner in the firm's complicated business and commercial litigation, bankruptcy, and insolvency areas.
Eisenberg, Rothweiler, Winkler, Eisenberg & Jeck announced the recent hiring of Stephan A. Cornell as an attorney in Philadelphia.
Over the years, Patrick Gunn's clients have included Zoom and eBay, as well as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
Partners Michael Weinstein and Joshua Saidlower will join former colleague Stephen Budow, a founding member of midsize firm Morrison Cohen and chair emeritus of the corporate department, as well as partners Andy Arsiotis, Michael Barry, Matt Friedman, Mike Martell, Steven Rockoff, and Henry Zangara.
Mona Bhalla led a 130-person agency tasked with overseeing New York's life insurance market.
Tarter Krinsky hired nine lawyers from the recently closed New York law firm Ingram Yuzek.
Chasan Lamparello hires three new education attorneys and Genova Burns elevates one of its partners.
Saxton & Stump reported that Jason A. Daigle has joined the company as an equity stakeholder, working out of the Charleston, South Carolina office. Barley Snyder stated that attorney Karen E. Toth has recently joined the firm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Seon Kang has joined the national Canadian corporation after more than 20 years at the multinational conglomerate.
After 16 years in the top spot, Hodges will hand reins to new practice co-heads, reports Ben Rigby
?
In-House
"If I wanted to stay in-house, I would have stayed at Mary Kay. What I wanted was a different challenge," Mary Kay’s retired legal chief Julia Simon told Law.com on her return to private practice in April. "The idea of bringing my broad knowledge and skills back to private practice and to a top tier trial firm was compelling."
Jenn McCarron wrote "If I sound defiant, it's because I am,". "I cannot and will not accept the status quo. The stakes are too high, and our industry will get left behind if we do."
Eric Topel joined Patsnap this month from Nevada's Socure. The Singapore-based startup raised $300 million from an investment group that includes Japan's SoftBank, with a valuation of more than $1 billion in 2021.
Heidi Chen worked at Pfizer for 13 years before helping to spin off the company's animal-health business as a standalone public company in 2012 and becoming its first legal head.
Andres Cedron arrives from Stryker Corporation to replace departed legal chief Patrick Keran.
?
Team Moves
April Nelson Ross and Rachel Raphael are located in Washington, D.C., while Mohamed Awan resides in Chicago.
Four litigation partners from Los Angeles, Atlanta, and South Florida have joined Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
Tarter Krinsky hired nine lawyers from the recently closed New York law firm Ingram Yuzek.
Baker McKenzie, a global legal practice, has announced the addition of highly acclaimed litigators David Baay, Jack Massey, Kelsey Machado, Ian Shelton, and Matthew (Matt) Rawlinson to its Houston team.
Chasan Lamparello Mallon & Cappuzzo has added three attorneys to its education practice group: Dennis McKeever, Marcie Mackolin, and Jaclyn Morgese. The attorneys join the firm from Cornell, Merlino & Osborne, where they practiced school law and served as board of education counsel.
?
Promotions & Appointments:
Bao Nguyen succeeds Patrick Quinn, who joined NYCB in 1999 and had been general counsel for the previous two years.
Andres Cedron said "This is an exciting time for the company, and I look forward to helping Orthofix become an even stronger competitor in the market,".
领英推荐
Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg stated that Lisa Lori, a partner in the firm's litigation department, has been named Marywood University's next president.
Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig, a Philadelphia personal injury and class action law firm, has announced the addition of attorney George A. Donnelly to its team.
The latest round represents a tiny dip from the firm's highest promotion round last year, when it elevated 30 lawyers to partnership.
Following Garousha's recent election as senior partner of the newly amalgamated firm, A&O partner David Foster will take over the job.
Maximiliano D'Auro takes over as the firm celebrates its 127th anniversary, succeeding a managing partner who had headed the huge Argentine firm for more than 20 years.
CMS has promoted 54 partners in its most recent promotions round, which includes 10 across the UK.
Herbert Smith Freehills has added Murphy Mok in Hong Kong, Emily Fox in Paris, Marco de Sousa in New York, and Matthew Shelley in Brisbane to its partnership.
?
Mergers & Alliances:
Ellingboe, who oversaw Faegre Baker Daniels' corporate litigation division prior to its 2020 merger with Drinker Biddle & Reath, stated that the virtual environment allowed attorneys to meet and communicate, which likely resulted in greater cross-office collaboration.
Fennemore Craig and Clark Hill have dominated the law firm merger scene in the past year.
They will encounter additional challenges, as Australian regulators, like those in many other nations and areas throughout the world, tighten their examination of M&A transactions.
Following its merger with a Chicago-based intellectual property boutique in 2021, the firm is currently expanding its corporate practice.
The merger would result in a firm with almost 1,600 lawyers, propelling it squarely into the Am Law 50.
Skadden is assisting longtime client International Paper on its ￡5.8 billion recommended bid for FTSE 100 UK packaging company DS Smith, which is represented by Slaughter and May.?
?
Office Openings & Closing:
One of the state's largest firms has expanded its base in Westport to better serve clients in lower Fairfield County.
The New York-based firm, which added another level to its long-term home in the Southeast Financial Center, has followed Greenberg Traurig in renewing office contracts.
Greenberg Traurig, LLP, a global law company, is now fully incorporated as a Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) law firm after receiving all essential government licenses.
One of Connecticut's top law firms doubled its size, while five partners from a now-defunct boutique joined New York's Warshaw Burstein.
A/C/R Legal will focus on transactional work, such as mergers and acquisitions, as well as supporting startups and handling highly complicated litigation and collective bargaining agreements.
?
Financials:
Twilio's chief legal officer Dana Wagner is no longer one of the highest-compensated general counsel, as his stock award shrank by more than $20 million in 2023.
Firm chair Peter Sullivan reported that the average PEP shot up more than 34%, as retirements and the progression of some lateral partners through a contract stage had some effect.
According to U.S. managing partner Jeff Cody, demand for the worldwide legal firm's platform has increased.
Profits per lawyer is an alternate approach of looking at firm profitability that aims to remove the impact of issues like indebtedness. The average is around $518,000, with the top of the list being around $3.04 million.
In 2023, the Am Law 100's average PEP increased by 9.3%. Thirty-seven enterprises experienced at least 10% growth, up from 14 last year. Twenty enterprises saw reductions in 2023.
Fifty-four companies reported gross revenue of $1 billion or more in 2023, four more than in 2022. Ninety enterprises reported increases in gross revenue.
A redesigned executive pay program went into effect on January 1, linking pay more closely to performance. Executives will no longer be able to pick how much of their compensation comes in the form of a wage.
?
Technology & Innovation:
John Polson of Fisher & Phillips said that "[Generative AI] does help the smaller firm punch above its weight on projects and matters that require a lot of people,".
Technological skills, such as the ability to automate procedures and use artificial intelligence to get more insight into data, are being introduced to the legal industry at an unprecedented rate.
In addition to providing three new talents for legal and tax professionals in the United States and the United Kingdom, Thomson Reuters announced ambitions to expand the CoCounsel generative AI assistant across all professional lines it covers, including risk, fraud, and media.
Artificial intelligence, like any other developing technology, is fraught with legal difficulties. These legal issues may not provide appealing entertainment, but they are critical in influencing the use and potential of AI.
BT Group has reduced its legal panel from 15 to 11 companies and declared that the panel firm that best utilizes AI and legal technology would receive an automatic spot when the roster is next evaluated.
?
Diversity & Inclusion:
On April 1, McMonagle Perri McHugh Mischak Davis' partner Charles M. Gibbs held a virtual town hall with Philadelphia Councilman Kenyatta Johnson.
A 2021 Villanova Law Review paper said, "despite these very real barriers, women should not be discouraged from contemplating becoming a dean,".
Only 29% of all lawyers in South Korea are female, and women hold only 13% of senior positions in legal firms.
The 52% female promotions represent the fourth consecutive year that the Magic Circle firm has exceeded its diversity target of at least 40% new partners being women. This indicates a significant shift from 2020, when only four (19%) of the 21-person cohort were female.
McCann FitzGerald LLP has signed Ireland's Women in Finance Charter, an industry-led and government-backed initiative aiming at expanding women's participation at all levels of the Irish financial services industry.
?
Market Commentary:
The Global Lawyer: Gender diversity progress at the equity partnership level has stalled, and long-term goals are failing—most likely due to systemic discrimination against primary careers.
The results of the country's presidential election in February have restored investor confidence in Southeast Asia's largest economy, and multinational law firms are bracing for a surge in Indonesia-related work.
In another big deal this week, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer led Johnson & Johnson's $13.1 billion acquisition of Shockwave Medical (represented by Fenwick & West), while Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett assisted Blackstone Real Estate Partners X in its $10 billion acquisition of Apartment Income REIT Corp (represented by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom).
vLex announced the launch of Document Analyze, a suite of generative artificial intelligence-powered tools for responding to litigation and transactional documents, as well as vLex Labs, an initiative in which the company will collaborate with leading global law firms to develop custom AI products.
Four of the six native Texas firms reported better income in 2023 than the previous year, propelling them up the Am Law 100 ranks.
Barry Wolf has overseen the firm since 2009 and will reach the obligatory retirement age of 68 in the next four years.
While three D.C. companies fell in the Am Law 100 rankings, six rose and three remained.
Even while partner movements were down year on year, Decipher said that law firms last year discovered one of the quickest ways to grow: purchasing partners with books of business.
The team was named Ireland Trademark Prosecution Firm of the Year, Ireland Copyright Firm of the Year, and Ireland IP Transactions & Advisory Firm of the Year, after being shortlisted in five of six categories.
This year marks the 23rd annual Real Deals Private Equity Awards which are the longest running and most prestigious private equity awards in Europe. The awards celebrate excellence in European private equity and recognizes and rewards those who have made an outstanding contribution to the industry.
Managing Director at Fides Search
7 个月Impressive to see A&O hiring further partners from Milbank, the ability to attract the talent that A&O desire is a huge gain if that is directly linked to their credibility in the US as a result of merging with Shearman. Also check out yet another significant hire into Gibson Dunn, Barbara Becker is driving growth and profitability at GDC, we have been tracking the hires and financials moves for some years and they increasingly amongst the most competitive firms for talent.