Weekly Update - 24th July 2023
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Moves:
UK & Ireland
Latham & Watkins has hired two investment funds lawyers from Sidley Austin in London. The firm has added Sidley partner Mateja Maher, and senior managing associate Adrian Grocock, with both joining Latham as partners.
Kennedys has expanded its UK liability practice with the addition of a nine-strong team from defendant insurance firm Plexus Law. The team is led by partner Mark Dyson and includes legal directors Ashley Mahon and Nicola McDougall along with a trio of associates, two litigation assistants and a legal secretary.
EMEA
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Paris has snagged a nine-lawyer, partner-led team in energy and infrastructure from Linklaters—the latest in a series of recent moves by the firm to bolster its global firepower in a growing practice area.
The team is led by Darko Adamovic, who practiced at Linklaters for 10 years, rising to partner, according to his LinkedIn profile. He previously practiced as an associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, according to LinkedIn.
APAC
Norton Rose Fulbright has hired dual-qualified litigation partner Paul Devlin from U.S. firm Perkins Coie to its white-collar crime team. Devlin, an Australian, is qualified in Australia and New York, with a focus on white collar and investigations matters and civil litigation, including complex multi-state class actions. He will return from the U.S. to join NRF’s Perth office.
The Americas
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has added a partner in New York firm Goodwin Procter to lead its global funds practice. Tim Clark has joined the firm’s global transactions group, marking the latest of a series of US private capital partner hires by the UK Magic Circle firm in its leveraged finance, capital solutions and bank regulatory teams.
Jeffrey Rosen, former acting U.S. attorney general under President Donald Trump, has joined Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Washington, D.C., office as of counsel. He’s the latest high-profile lawyer to join the Wall Street firm’s new D.C. office, as it seeks to become more competitive in the region.
New York-based Debevoise & Plimpton opened up shop in the Bay Area in late 2021 to be closer to its tech and investor clients. Now it is adding litigators to help those same clients and others.
The firm is adding Josh Cohen, a litigator and white-collar trial lawyer with two decades of experience working in California, and Abraham Tabaie, a broad-range commercial litigator, to its office in the Bay Area, the firm said Tuesday.
Judge Joseph Greenaway will join Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer as a partner this September, after he retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit earlier this year, the firm said Tuesday.
Greenaway marks at least the fifth lateral partner for Arnold & Porter in the last two months, as the firm remains busy in the lateral front across offices and practices.
Squire Patton Boggs has brought on Charles Rosenberg as a partner in its international dispute resolution practice in Washington, D.C., following on the heels of the firm securing several arbitration victories. Rosenberg joins the firm from King & Spalding and focuses on investment treaty arbitration and international commercial arbitration, with a particular expertise in the energy sector.
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius has brought on two new partners from global firms K&L Gates and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to bolster its legacy liability and global tax groups, furthering the firm’s strategic presence in Pittsburgh and Boston as well as addressing increased demand specifically for insurance work.
Paul Fuener, a former partner at K&L Gates for nearly 20 years, joined Morgan Lewis’ legacy liability practice in Pittsburgh and is the fifth attorney in this practice area to join the firm this year, following the addition of four partners and one of counsel across the firm’s New York, Chicago, and Dallas offices.
Winston & Strawn is adding two partners to its Miami-based tax group, holstering the team’s already expanding roster.
Former Baker McKenzie tax partners Jeffrey Rubinger and Summer LePree are joining the team, which also added former Greenberg Traurig shareholder David Wells in May. Winston & Strawn was part of the wave of firms that opened offices in Miami about a year ago as the region has flourished economically. Since its opening, the office’s leadership has cited the wealth migrating into Florida as one of its core targets for growth.
Thompson Coburn continues to expand its Dallas office, which launched in March 2020 as the pandemic took hold, by adding Norton Rose Fulbright employment law and litigation partner Tom Reddin, Munck Wilson Mandala trial partner Andrew McKeon, and Texas State Senator Nathan Johnson, who joined as counsel.
London-based litigation boutique Pallas Partners has grown in New York with the hire of a senior federal prosecutor. Josh Naftalis, who led the recent conviction of Goldman Sachs investment banker Brijesh Goel for insider trading, has joined Pallas as a partner in the litigation and investigation practice, the firm said today.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has strengthened its international trade practice in Washington DC with the hire of a trio of partners from Hughes Hubbard & Reed. Ryan Fayhee, Roy Liu and Tyler Grove bring extensive experience advising clients on economic sanctions, export controls, anti-corruption and anti-money laundering compliance and investigations.
In-House
Mastercard has hired Micron Technology’s general counsel to become its chief legal officer and head of global policy.
Rob Beard is departing Boise, Idaho-based Micron, one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies, where he has spent nine years in legal leadership roles, the last two as general counsel and corporate secretary.
The Bay Area consulting firm Berkeley Research Group has hired former Food and Drug Administration chief counsel Dan Troy as managing director in its health analytics practice.
Troy will be based out of Washington, D.C. He brings more than 30 years of experience in corporate governance and compliance to 13-year-old Berkeley, which specializes disputes and investigations, and performance improvement.
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz partner Sabastian Niles, known for defending companies against proxy fights, hostile takeovers and activist investors, will join Salesforce as its chief legal officer, the business software giant confirmed Monday.
Taylor Swift has hired her outside counsel—a litigator who helped her prevail in a high-profile 2017 court fight with a radio personality she accused of groping—as general counsel of her Nashville, Tennessee-based management company, 13 Management.
Douglas Baldridge, who has represented the pop sensation for nine years, will succeed Jay Schaudies, who is retiring after 11 years with the company, The Wall Street Journal reported exclusively Tuesday.
British multinational Kingfisher has appointed a new general counsel from fellow FTSE 100 company Reckitt. London-based Sapna Dutta will join the home and DIY multinational in October after six years at Reckitt, where she is currently SVP and general counsel for the company’s global health business, and for material litigation and investigations on a group-wide basis.
领英推荐
Mergers & Alliances:
Eversheds Sutherland’s international arm and King & Wood Mallesons’ (KWM’s) China business have formed an exclusive alliance that will see KWM close its six offices in the UK, Europe and the Middle East.
The groundbreaking deal requires KWM’s China arm - KWM (China) - to refer all future outbound UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa and South America legal work to Eversheds International with Eversheds reciprocating by referring China legal work to KWM (China) “subject to client preference and conflict clearance”.
A group of litigation lawyers and staff from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan totaling more than 20 professionals are following the two partners leaving for Steptoe & Johnson this month, according to sources with knowledge of the moves. Sources with knowledge of both firms also said Steptoe, at one point a potential merger partner for Stroock, is in talks to take over the New York-based law firm’s Los Angeles office lease, in a scenario in which Stroock would shed its sole West Coast outpost.
As Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling embark on a roadshow to convince their respective partnerships to vote through their proposed merger, it has become clear that in many regions of the world, Allen & Overy is the bigger and stronger of the two firms, with more offices and a larger head count. Not so in Latin America.
As Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling leaders travel throughout offices to rally partners toward a merger, they are confronting questions tied to the New York law firm’s pension program and addressing the future leadership structure after the sudden exit of a managing partner. But they say the firms have been making strong progress toward a merger, with a vote still on track in October.
In an interview, Allen & Overy global senior partner Wim Dejonghe said he accepted to “govern for the short term” but said after the summer that “we need to get someone next to me to help me run the business.”
Office Openings & Closing:
Ropes & Gray has launched its fifth office in Asia—in Singapore— becoming the second U.S. private equity-focused law firm to set up shop in the city-state in less than a year, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The firm has relocated disputes and contentious practice partner Andrew Dale from Hong Kong to Singapore to help set up and lead its new outfit. With Dale relocating to Singapore, there will be 24 lawyers, including 5 partners, remaining in Ropes & Gray’s Hong Kong office.
Shearman & Sterling is to wind down its Seoul office ahead of its highly anticipated proposed merger with Allen & Overy. According to the firm’s website, the firm has no lawyers remaining in the South Korean office, which first opened in 2019 after it received a licence to practise in the country in late 2018.
Financials:
Non-U.K.-based law firms make up almost half of the largest legal institutions in the U.K., according to inaugural rankings by Law.com International.
Ranking the largest global firms by only their U.K. revenue, the research shows 12 of the top 30 are U.S.-based, meaning they have more lawyers in the U.S. than in any other single country, while a further two are Asia-based.
Pinsent Masons has increased its profit per equity partner by nearly 8%—defying the pattern of most law firm financial results so far. The 7.8% uplift in the 2022-23 results takes the firm’s PEP to ￡797,000, while revenue has also increased, climbing 14% to hit ￡605.9 million.
Clifford Chance has posted subdued financials results for the year ending April 2023, with profits and profit per equity partner flatlining, despite revenue surpassing the ￡2 billion mark for the first time.
Revenues continued to rise for the eighth consecutive year, however only by a modest 5%, to go from ￡1.97 billion to ￡2.06 billion—falling just shy of the ￡2.1 billion revenue reported by rival Allen & Overy earlier in the month, reversing the previous year’s photo finish.
Herbert Smith Freehills is the latest U.K.-based law firm to announce little or no growth to its average profit per equity partner, with the figure inching up 1% to ￡1,173,000 in its latest financial results.
The lack of growth came despite an 8% revenue rise to ￡1.186 billion in the 12 months to April 2023. Overall profit also inched up by 2%, now standing at ￡388.2 million.
The largest U.S. based law firms in London outperform their U.K. counterparts when it comes to revenue per lawyer, making them the highest-generating firms in the country at a per-lawyer level.
Law.com International’s latest ranking, determining firms’ revenue per U.K. lawyer, shows the top five spots are all taken by U.S.-headquartered firms, being the only ones to secure a figure greater than ￡1 million.
Technology & Innovation:
A little more than halfway through 2023, law firm leaders continue to voice concerns about a variety of business threats, from economic uncertainty and the war in Ukraine to attorney disengagement and the impact of technology.
While those concerns aren’t necessarily novel, recent conversations with firm leaders at Orrick, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Perkins Coie reveal there is a growing commonality to the madness: the need to adapt and innovate in a world where change is a constant.
Diversity & Inclusion:
Slaughter and May has become the first elite U.K. law firm to set social mobility diversity targets and is broadening the universities it works with to help achieve its aims, the firm announced on Monday.?
The targets are set to?increase the representation of lower socio-economic background (LSEB) individuals across all levels of the firm. The LSEB standard uses an individual’s parental occupation at the age of 14, to measure an individual’s socio-economic background.?
The targets, set for 2033, are to have: 25% LSEB individuals across the firm’s total population, up from 18.8%; 15% across the firm’s lawyers, up from a current 10%; and 40% in the firm’s business services group, up from a current 34.7%.
A recent survey suggests about half of those working in the environmental, social and governance space are facing exhaustion and burnout as the once-lauded movement faces pressure from political actors, customers and their own clients.
Market Commentary:
It has been several years since the U.K.’s largest law firms said they dropped their once-ubiquitous retirement thresholds, but the issue has not gone away.
Most of the changes came after the U.K. government scrapped the default retirement age in April 2011 following a campaign led by charity Age UK. Since then employers have faced legal action if they forced out employees once they hit 65, effectively prohibiting mandatory retirement policies.
Hogan Lovells has paid tribute to long-standing partner Crispin Rapinet, who passed away last month, according to the firm.
The firm issued a statement online, saying: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of Crispin Rapinet. He was a great colleague as well as being a friend to many in our London office and across both our global disputes practice and the wider firm, having joined us over 35 years ago as a trainee. He was a highly talented lawyer and a much loved member of our team. Our thoughts are with his family at this time.”
Wall Street firms are marching back to the office, requiring four-day attendance come September. But a handful of large West Coast firms aren’t following suit. What it comes down to for these firms is the ability to recruit and retain talent by offering workplace flexibility that aligns with their people and culture and accounts for circumstances outside of attorneys’ control, according to firm leaders at DLA Piper, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and several smaller California firms.