Weekly Update - 8th January 2023
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Moves:
UK & Ireland
The firm has set in motion one of the fastest and highest-profile expansions in the City in recent years hiring a top PE duo, Chris Sullivan an M&A partner and Taner Hassan a Leveraged Finance Partner.
Linklaters lifer Mark Drury has left for Reed Smith he joins the financial industry group as a Capital Markets Partner. The move comes just days after the firm parted ways with a partner duo bound for Paul Weiss and Skadden.
Katie McMenamin a Travers lifer has joined as a Partner in Simpson Thacher’s fund finance practice. The firm is rebuilding in London following the shock exit of two long-standing partners to Kirkland & Ellis two months ago.
Neill Blundell joins from Macfarlanes’ where he led the corporate crime and investigations practice.
Paul Weiss has hired Nicole Kar in London; Kar was Linklaters global head of antitrust.
EMEA
Luis Collado Moreno had been at the firm for almost two decades.
King & Spalding has hired Ashurst’s former Head of Corporate, Middle East, Simon Fraser and Senior Associate Matt Hartsuyker who is joining as a partner.
Philip Dunham has joined Signature Litigation as an International Arbitration Partner from Dechert, he was a member of the 13-strong arbitration team which quit Dechert last month.
APAC
Rajah & Tann Singapore has hired Hew Kian Heong as an International Arbitration Partner in China as they celebrate 20 years of their Shanghai office.
Dorothy Siron, a long-time partner at Beijing-based Zhong Lun Law Firm, and Danny Kan, an in-house counsel from Chinese financial services group Ping An, are joining the U.K.-headquartered firm as partners in Hong Kong.
Malaysia's LCWP becomes country's first firm to boast KC in ranks. Arbitration expert Ng Jern-Fei has joined Malaysian boutique Lim Chee Wee Partnership (LCWP), making the latter the country's first law firm in Malaysia to have a King's Counsel.
Jo Dodd will join the firm's Sydney office in February. Jo is a leading Debt Capital Markets lawyer and will be joining the firm as a Partner.
Kennedys have bolstered their insurance offering with the hire of a team of 12 from Clyde and Co in Sydney, the move follows Lucinda Lyons ex-Clyde’s Managing Partner who moved to Kennedys in early December. The team is comprised of special counsel Con Kakakios, two senior associates, four associates, a trainee and four support staff.
The Americas
The six-person team is departing ahead of the firm's merger with Allen & Overy, which will see A&O leaders take charge of the combined firm.
Banking, finance, and restructuring lawyer Kalyan Das has joined Greenberg Traurig LLP along with Sharon Calay and Andrew Silverstein. They join from Seward & Kissel, where Das spent over three decades and was head of the global bank and institutional finance & restructuring practice.
Wes Scott joins as a Member of the Firm from Nelson Millins where he led their M&A practice. The firm's comparatively large national healthcare practice gives him "a catalogue of resources I have never had before," Wes Scott said.
William Hochul, husband of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, heads to Davis Polk’s White-Collar Defence & Investigations practice as a Counsel, while Quinn Emanuel hired Indigo GC Paul Dacier as Boston Partner.
Energy specialist Sarah McLean joins ahead of Shearman’s merger with Allen & Overy as a Partner in the Corporate and Financial Services department and Private Equity practice in Houston, Texas.
Taurie Zeitzer has joined White & Case’s Private Equity group in New York from Paul Weiss where she was co-head of the M&A group.
In-House
Danielle Gray is moving on one year after she helped the drugstore giant resolve opioid litigation by agreeing to pay $5.8 billion over 15 years. She will be succeeded by Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer Matthew D'Ambrosio.
After serving ten years with HSBC, litigation lawyer Lynsey Murning Gregory is joining K3 Capital Group & Quantuma as their General Counsel of all the entities.?
Shara Chang joins Chime from proptech firm Divvy Homes, where she served as chief legal officer for more than a year, overseeing legal, compliance and HR functions. Prior to that, she was general counsel and chief compliance officer at Peach Finance, associate general counsel for privacy and product at Meta, and first product counsel at fintech Affirm.
Veteran Cigna lawyer Neil Boyden Tanner is taking the legal reins of the optics and medical company from Donna Miller. "Filling Donna's shoes is an honour I don't take lightly," he said.
Nathaniel Gardiner will retire at the end of March 2024, after 28 years with Entata Pharmaceuticals.
During Laura Franco's three years as chief legal and compliance officer, the Texas-based company often was in the headlines speaking out against new restrictions on abortion.
After holding key roles in banking, the home-improvement industry and retailing, Hannah Kim is taking the legal reins of Circana, an $8 billion consumer research firm formed through the merger of Information Resources Inc. and NPD Group.
Anna Suchopar left her role at the clothing retailer early last year and will now head the legal team at online travel agency Agoda.
Promotions & Appointments:
Jennifer Craighead Carey took over from Jeffrey Lobach, who'd served a decade in the role, on Jan. 1.
A Duane Morris litigator in California is now overseeing the firm’s trial practice lawyers after the Philadelphia-founded firm appointed bicoastal leadership in its largest department. Stephen Sutro, who has served as managing partner of the firm’s San Francisco office for almost a decade, succeeds Philadelphia-based Wayne Mack, who led the more than 400-lawyer trial practice group since 2018 alongside Philadelphia-based Sharon Caffrey. Caffrey will remain as co-chair while Mack takes a chair emeritus position, leaders at the firm said. The changes were effective Jan. 1.
Holland & Knight announced its latest round of partner promotions, reflecting a slight decrease in partner promotions compared to last year and a sharper focus on northeast markets.
Pennsylvania-based construction attorneys Joseph Imperiale and Robert Gallagher are now leading the firm's Philadelphia and Pittsburgh offices, respectively, while white-collar attorney Charles Peeler will head up Atlanta. Adrienne Thompson will head up Portland, Tate Tischner Rochester and Christopher Jones Washington D.C. These appointments coincide with Amie Colby officially stepping into the role as firmwide managing partner and Tom Cole assuming the role of chair.
Eversheds elected eight U.S. lawyers to partner for 2024, following just one election last year.
Trial lawyer Christopher Lovrien has been named Partner-In-Charge of the firms Australia region he will lead from the firms LA office.
Cadwalader, Quinn and Sidley have announced which partners have made the cut.
Richard Gu replaces Eric Liu who recently defected to Beijing-based Haiwen & Partners.
The appointments include new heads in Dubai and Riyadh.
Jody Waugh replaces Samer Qudah, who served in the position for four years. Jody Waugh has been with the firm for over 16 years and prior to his appointment was Head of Banking and Finance.
The moves are part of a previously announced leadership transition to shepherd the Global 200 firm through the implementation of a new multi-year strategic plan starting in January.
领英推荐
A small number of legal professionals, including the GC of Standard Chartered bank, a Doughty Street chambers barrister and a senior lawyer at the SFO, were also recognised in the 2024 list.
Mergers & Alliances:
Almost two years after firm co-founder Slade McLaughlin's death by suicide, managing partner Paul Lauricella is moving his firm's practice over to the Philadelphia personal injury mainstay.
A&O's tie-up with Shearman could be a harbinger of more U.K.-headquartered firms expanding into the U.S.
Office Openings & Closing:
Earlier this year, the firm made its international debut via a launch in Singapore.
TMI Associates, one of Japan's largest law firms, opened an office in Paris earlier this year.
Akin will continue to practice in Hong Kong and Singapore, its two other offices in Asia.
This is the largest office lease in the US for the year, according to the owners.
From Stroock to Schnader, firms that failed struggled with common issues of recruitment, retention and financial obligations.
Earlier this year, the firm made its international debut via a launch in Singapore.
TMI Associates, one of Japan's largest law firms, opened an office in Paris earlier this year.
Zuzunaga & Assereto Abogados has launched an outpost in Barcelona—its first outside Peru.
Pierson Ferdinand among largest law firm debuts in US history. Two former practice leaders at FisherBroyles have left to set up a new firm, taking more than 130 lawyers with them in a move they say marks one of the largest law firm debuts in US history.?
Michael Barlow's history of working with Quinn Emanuel's litigators as Delaware counsel includes representing clients Mirae Asset Global Investments and Snow Phipps Group in the first two COVID-19 "busted deal" cases to go to trial.
Financials:
"As in 2021, I think 2022 was also a great year financially for a lot of companies," said Bob Graff, an Atlanta-based in-house recruiter and a partner with Major, Lindsey & Africa. "The stock market did pretty well last year. It's not surprising that people met or exceeded their bonus targets and met or exceeded their equity targets."
The merger of the two firms is due to formally take effect in May 2024, with 99% of partners at both firms approving the plans in October.
The firm's total number of partners and staff costs rose, as it continued to grapple with its pension liability, the latest LLP accounts show.
The US arm of the firm has also made eight promotions across its American offices.
Technology & Innovation:
The same attackers were behind a data breach at Allen & Overy last month, with experts at the time suggesting the firm may have to pay out several million to avoid confidential information being published.
"Not only is this terrifying because it can happen to any organization that's building software, but it's actually also incredibly difficult to detect," said Dan Draper, founder of CipherStash.
"We're going to be working with [Thomson Reuters] on a whole suite of AI-powered tools," said chief knowledge and management and practice services officer Colleen Nihill. "Because of Morgan Lewis' depth and breadth across multiple geographies, I think they saw us as being well suited to all different use cases."
"One thing we know about hot marketing terms is that some advertisers won't be able to stop themselves from overusing and abusing them," FTC attorney Michael Atleson wrote in a blog post.
From a host of law firm-created generative AI chatbots to new innovative client offerings and the launch of another law firm legal tech subsidiary, this year showed that law firms are confidently embracing their place in the legal technology market.
Over 1,000 of the firm's lawyers are already using the tool internally, and five clients have already agreed terms for a January launch, the firm said.
Diversity & Inclusion:
"Including Jews under the DEI umbrella would accomplish three things. First is education. Providing more knowledge could bring more understanding. Second is bridging differences. Fostering communication will help build relationships and facilitate productive dialogue. Third is community. Jews need a safe space to connect and explore the range of experiences we are facing."
Market Commentary:
At least 30 large law firms have announced some kind of leadership transition within the last year or so. "It's been an exciting but challenging and exhausting few years," noted one Am Law 100 leader.
In 2012, I tried to take my own life and then learned that I had been for, well, a long time, been dealing with undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder. Along the road to my attempt, I did some unethical things, and consequently had some time away from the law.
Given the CTA's sweeping scope and the extensive information required for compliance, the new legislation will undoubtedly have significant impacts on middle market M&As moving forward.
"This growing focus on ESG is likely linked to the pandemic and climate crisis, so that investors and policymakers have realized the importance of at least tracking ESG-related data and metrics as they struggle to adapt to a rapidly changing world," Pacesetter Research analyst Ruth Sierra said.
While 2023 had fewer transactions than the past few years, they were more complex and required more lawyer hours to complete.
With top in-house lawyers increasingly being part of the C-suite, they bring more to the table than just their legal expertise. Efficient knowledge sharing is essential in that process.
From A&O Shearman to Israel-Gaza—here are our picks for the biggest stories of the year.
Though firms have different approaches, the momentum in partner compensation is heading toward merit-based rewards to compete for rainmakers and grow profitability.
"The big group moves are driven by the stars that are part of those groups," said Macrae recruiter Justine Donahue. "The high rainmakers can command a group to move with them based on their clients and their brand name."
Big names such as Walmart and Smithsonian, generative artificial intelligence innovators and more will ring in the new year with new legal department leadership.
Find out who topped the rankings and scooped all the accolades in 2023—hardly the most straightforward year on record.
The year was awash with team hires, star exits and English law debuts, as certain big-name moves even prompted the industry to question one particular firm's very survival.
Cyber threats are real and dangerous—but good old fashioned retention is number one, and goes to the very heart of your firm's success and survival, writes The Global Lawyer.
The scheme, which goes firmwide this week, offers associates "a real chance to reset their career", said Michael Craig, a disputes and investigations associate.
Researcher at Fides Search
10 个月Fantastic stuff as always