Weekly Update - 28th May 2024
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Moves:??
UK & Ireland??
Louis Flannery KC, Head of international arbitration at Mishcon de Reya, is scheduled to join Littleton Chambers in London. He will be admitted to the bar and work as a counsel in addition to serving as an arbitrator.??
Ms Herron has extensive knowledge of the regulatory landscape that exists at the nexus of technology and life sciences, and she adeptly navigates the complexities of the EU regulatory framework for her clients.??
David McConaghie has been appointed as a solicitor in the Derry office of Caldwell & Robinson Solicitors, an Ireland-wide legal practice.??
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EMEA??
Oliver Seiler and David Rath join the US firm in Frankfurt despite reports Latham restructuring partner duo are moving to Willkie Farr & Gallagher.??
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APAC??
At a time when white-collar employment in Southeast Asia is still on the increase, Tiara Katrina Fuad, partner at the Malaysian law firm Lee Hishammuddin Allen & Gledhill, has established a white-collar crime practice.??
Richard Cheng Li has joined the UK law firm Simmons & Simmons as a partner and the leader of its healthcare and life sciences group in Hong Kong. Li most recently served as I-Mab Biopharma's chief legal officer.??
With the appointment of antitrust and intellectual property specialist Dave Koo, South Korean Big Six firm Yulchon has continued its ambitious expansion. Koo will be the business's tenth partner hire of 2024. Koo leaves Kim & Chang, where he held the position of senior foreign attorney.??
With the appointment of partner Gladi Febri Argo, who was previously the managing partner at the Indonesian boutique WilberForce Argo, a firm he co-founded in 2012, Indonesia's FKNK Law Firm has strengthened its cross-border investment offering.??
Janney Chong, a corporate finance specialist from RPC, has joined the Hong Kong law firm Robertsons as a partner.??
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The Americas??
Emil Infante and his ultra-high-net-worth clientele joined Squire Patton Boggs last week.??
Vincent Barbera is an expert in noncompete agreements.??
Eva Temkin moved to Arnold & Porter because of a disagreement at Paul Hastings, meanwhile Latham has attracted two partners from Skadden.??
Tom Panoff, a partner at Mayer Brown, specializes in commercial and antitrust litigation. He expressed that his clients and practice will benefit from the shift to Sheppard Mullin.??
In 2016 and 2017, Danielle Ward Mason was recognized for winning verdicts against Johnson & Johnson totalling over $1 billion.??
Over two decades of experience in assisting clients in responding to catastrophic events will be used as Greg Dillard leads the team of approximately thirty lawyers spread across many offices.??
In the meantime, other Southeast legal firms add labour, real estate, and regulatory attorneys while Fox Rothschild encourages attorneys in Atlanta and the Carolinas to become partners.??
Attorney Stephanie Caloiaro has joined the government group at Malamut Law, which has its headquarters in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.??
Their client lists show how even though large companies like Akin and Brownstein generate the most annual money from lobbying, small firm lobbying shops can start up or prosper.??
Celso L. Leite Jr. has joined Hamburg, Rubin, Mullin, Maxwell & Lupin's real estate and land use department, the company stated.??
Michael Urschel joined Milbank in April of last year as a member of a group of ten attorneys from King & Spalding.??
Scott T. Earle has joined Goldberg Segalla's Philadelphia-based construction litigation and counsel department.??
Midsize Moves: Seltzer Caplan Hires 2 Attorneys, Hall Render Adds Former Appeals Court Legal Adviser??
Two new solicitors have joined Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek, they are Ora Lupear and Austin Peterson; also, Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman has announced the addition of Liza Sawyer to the company in its Washington, D.C. office.??
Along with co-worker Francois Joli-Coeur, Eloise Gratton moves on and takes on the role of co-chair of Osler's practice group dedicated to privacy and data management.??
Just last week, at least eight partners from various cities around the nation joined new firms.??
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In house??
As corporate counsel, Stephanie Schaeffer joined the payroll services company. She rose to the position of chief legal officer two years later and head of legal services four years after.??
The Minneapolis-based utility commented in March that its facilities "appeared to have been involved" in igniting the largest wildfire in Texas history.??
The producer of network equipment has appointed Regan MacPherson as its chief legal officer.??
Following John Orta's resignation as chief legal officer and head of corporate development earlier this month, Sophia Contreras will be taking over as general counsel.??
The deputy general counsel of the fastest-growing sandwich chain in the country has been promoted to vice president and general counsel.??
Boeckmann rejoins Bracewell partners Seth DuCharme and Roslynn Mauskopf, as well as other EDNY co-workers.??
Manny Alvare, who had previously served as head of the company's legal department, was elevated to general counsel by recreational boat and yacht supplier MarineMax.??
William Grant & Sons, the makers of Glenfiddich Scotch whisky, have named Isabelle Meyer group general counsel, succeeding Catriona Macritchie, who is retiring.??
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Team Moves??
Considering he is the former co-chair of Paul Hastings' Shanghai and Beijing offices, It is fair to describe Jia Yan as an experienced partner.??
Five members of EY's technology and commercial law team have joined Browne Jacobson, one of the top 50 UK law firms, as of right now. The group has moved to a new office in London.??
A two-partner restructuring team is departing to join Willkie, while another two-partner team is joining White & Case to bolster the latter's practice in equity capital markets.??
Archer & Greiner promotes two partners, Riker Danzig adds three attorneys, and other changes are reported.??
Baker Hostetler, Lewis Brisbois, and Holland & Knight are a few of the large companies in the city experiencing tremendous expansion.??
After working together for over ten years, Ryan Dykal, Jordan Bergsten, and Mark Schafer have a wealth of trial expertise resolving IP disputes in the computer industry for both plaintiffs and defendants.??
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Promotions & Appointments:??
General counsel for the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) has been named as Steven P. Engel by Maiello Brungo & Maiello, a legal company that specializes in construction law and related disputes.??
领英推荐
In the last eight months, the full-service firm—which is among the biggest in Latin America—has added more than a dozen partners to support expansion into private equity and other sectors.??
Professor Roja Fazaeli of the University of Galway has been named deputy chair of Front-Line Defenders, an international human rights organisation.??
Emma Richmond, a co-managing partner at Whitney Moore, was inducted to the Meritas board of directors, which is an international network of independent law firms.??
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Mergers & Alliances:??
Ben Beerle, a corporate partner with Cooley who handles mergers and acquisitions noted that "Each of our clients is getting more inbound phone calls from firms looking to work with them than they did three or four years ago”.??
Investors are being represented by Withers, Reynolds Porter, Quinn Emanuel, Pallas Partners, and Clyde & Co. about their claims over the write-down of Credit Suisse's AT1 bond.??
Newly established law firms Bruckhaus Deringer, Kirkland & Ellis, and Eversheds Sutherland have secured positions in the acquisition of the UK insurance provider Specialist Risk Group by private equity firms Temasek and Warburg Pincus for a sum over ￡1 billion.??
BHP of Australia wants to be the biggest copper miner in the world and will get closer to achieving this goal with this merger.??
After the deal, the management of Fortress has a 32% equity stake and may choose the majority of the board's members.??
The Spanish company is going to combine Microsoft's Co-pilot and Azure with its own generative artificial intelligence technology.??
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Office Openings & Closing:??
With the closure of its ten-year-old Berlin office, Eversheds Sutherland will now only have four offices throughout Germany.??
Baker Hostetler, Lewis Brisbois, and Holland & Knight are a few of the large companies in the city experiencing tremendous expansion.??
Amid the discussion about flexible and hybrid work arrangements, companies are still trying to find a way to combine open-plan and cellular work.??
Hong Kong law firm Oldham, Li & Nie has launched an elder law practice group after hiring Helena Hu as a consultant to co-head it. It is believed to be the first Hong Kong law firm to offer such a practice.??
AGI Legal is being led by Allen & Gledhill partner Aris Budi Prasetiyo, as well as three former partners at Indonesian firm Ali Budiardjo, Nugroho, Reksodiputro.??
Following an appellate victory, lawyers defending a U.K. tailor couldn't resist using sewing-related wordplay; a Shipman & Goodwin partner will moderate Yale's innovation summit; and Sills Cummis & Gross joins a long list of Northeast firms opening in Florida.??
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Financials:??
Despite joining the company in 1999, Richard Rothberg has served as its head of legal affairs since 2013.??
Industry expert Peter Zeughauser asserts that "The market is the reality, and you have to live in that reality. You can't have your head in the sand".??
According to CEO Noah Heller, robust demand in areas such as private wealth, structured finance, bankruptcy and restructuring, private credit, and litigation in the second part of the year also contributed to revenue growth.??
According to Citi, first-quarter expenses in the Southeast increased more quickly than those in the sector, but demand growth was also present.??
Based on a sample of companies' data, the Am Law 100 increased its average equity partner pay spread from 9.8-to-1 in 2022 to 10.3-to-1 in 2023.??
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Technology & Innovation:??
Every legal business looking to completely abandon on-premises IT infrastructure ought to think about utilizing Microsoft 365 and its ancillary services to become serverless.??
It is yet unclear how criminal law enforcement will be able to monitor inappropriate usage of artificial intelligence. When AI-driven decision-making results in legal infractions instead of deliberate human activities, that task will become very difficult.??
According to Dorna Moini, the creator and CEO of Gavel, the new OpenAI model reduced costs in half and improved accuracy by 25% over the GPT-4.??
The connections are intended to enable more smoother interactions between the legal tech platforms and applications within Microsoft's ecosystem. They were revealed during the week of the "Microsoft Build" developer conference.??
An ongoing collection of the ways that generative AI tools—from GPT technologies to art creation tools and beyond—are continuing to influence the legal landscape.??
The directive coincides with the introduction of new EU regulations that lay out a thorough set of guidelines for artificial intelligence.??
The company, which has seen a decline in earnings, is presently Jylo's only investor and will be the service's first payer.??
A report by PwC highlights those sectors with highest AI penetration 'are seeing almost fivefold greater labour productivity growth'.??
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Diversity & Inclusion:???
ELEC Chair Tom Prol said, "With executive director Haines at the helm, New Jersey voters can be confident that ELEC will continue to fulfil its transparency mandate and will vigorously monitor and enforce campaign financing laws with an eye toward protecting and lifting up vulnerable and historically disenfranchised communities".??
After his misogynistic and anti-trans email became viral, Rob Rakochey left his Calgary firm.??
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Market Commentary:??
In recent months, numerous C-suite positions have been filled due to high demand for suitable talent within firms' business ranks.??
According to a survey by executive search company Russell Reynolds Associates, "the step up for internal candidates from deputy to GC is a much bigger gap to bridge" because being a general counsel today demands a far wider variety of competencies.??
Former in-house lawyer Shai Mehani, who is also co-founder of the networking group In-house Connect said "The more camaraderie that's on the team, the less stress, the less burnout and the higher the retention rates".??
A recent report concluded "Whether it's due to redundancies, retirement or switching firms, support staff turnover seems to be fixed at a high rate for the foreseeable future,".??
In the past week, firms including Paul Weiss, Sullivan & Cromwell, Akin, K&L Gates, and Seyfarth have all revealed their lateral M&A partners.??
Persistent uncertainty and negative news signals to certain Asian corporations that it's time to make a break for it. However, Jessica Seah in the Asia Legal Briefing argues that legal businesses cannot claim to have a worldwide offering without being present in Asia.??
When Fleur Katsmartin first got to The Royal Melbourne Hospital, she went door-to-door.??
Partners often believe that the juniors are the ones in need of assistance and that they do not. However, that might not be the case.??
As the international portfolio of the recently combined firm is still being developed, what does this mean for A&O's long-standing Africa practice???
When U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced an early general election for July 4, many British lawyers were just as shocked as their clients. This was a vote that may reshape the tax landscape with the first change of government in over ten years.?? ?