Weekly Update - 9th September 2024
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?Moves:
UK & Ireland
Carolyn Alford, co-leader of the firm's finance and restructuring practice group said, "It's not something we were doing before. It was a whole piece of the market that we really weren't doing until this group joined us".
After just a year at Quinn Emanuel, where he co-led the firm's U.K. competition practice with partner Kate Vernon, Lambros Kilaniotis has joined Eversheds. August 2022 marked his joining of the litigation powerhouse from RPC.
The private equity and M&A practices of A&O Shearman are welcoming Paul Dunbar and Dan Graham. Both individuals moved from Vinson & Elkins to Sidley Austin as partners in 2021.
Since 2017, Melanie Howard has been a partner in M&A at Baker McKenzie. She had spent ten years with Clifford Chance before. Howard is going to be a part of Latham's fintech and healthcare industry divisions.
Morgan Lewis & Bockius in London has sent two project finance partners to Hunton Andrews Kurth, an Am Law 100 firm. Seyfi Can Kandemir and Ayesha Waheed will be joining the global energy and infrastructure practice, with a focus on the thermal power, mining, renewable energy, infrastructure, and liquefied natural gas industries.
Senior director of law at PSP Nicola Noel was the executive director of Goldman Sachs' Credit Finance Transaction Execution Group before founding PSP's European credit legal unit.
Elizabeth Bradley has been named a partner in DLA Piper's finance practice department, based in Dublin, effective January 2025. Ms. Bradley comes from the Maples Group, where she spent more than ten years as a partner in the banking and finance division of the company.
Nikhil Markanday joins from King & Spalding and brings with him more than 20 years of expertise advising clients on significant infrastructure and energy projects throughout the EMEA area.
Victoria Newbold was taken from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner by Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, which relaunched the company's London competition practice in front of the UK's new digital markets law and increased scrutiny of artificial intelligence.
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EMEA
After serving as partner and head of commercial disputes Middle East at Addleshaw Goddard for three years, Shane Jury, whose practice focuses on complex commercial disputes and investigations, joins Ashurst in Dubai. He had previously worked with Clifford Chance, Minter Ellison, and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.
One of the leading candidates to be the next prime minister of France is Bernard Cazeneuve, a former prime minister of France who is currently a white collar and compliance partner at the French law firm August Debouzy.
Paolo Manganelli previously was a partner at Paul Hastings, and earlier in his career managed the insolvency litigation for fraud-hit Parmalat when he was deputy head of litigation at the dairy and food company.
Partners Carl Renner and Michael Zollner joined DLA at the beginning of September to oversee the operation, which will offer volume and repeat solutions combined with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The centre, according to the firm, will free up primary fee earners to engage on higher value problems while the LDC is assigned more repetitive and administrative jobs.
According to Skadden, clients who may have legal issues as a result of recent modifications to France's white-collar criminal code may benefit from Emmanuel Marsigny's experience.
Aditi Sanyal provides conventional and Islamic financing advice to financial institutions in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
With Nils Kupka, the international top 100 law firm Gowling WLG is bolstering its presence in Germany once more. The seasoned partner joins the firm's Frankfurt office and bolsters the dispute resolution team as part of the firm's European growth strategy.
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APAC
Partner Vivian Yiu will be joining Beijing-brd Jingtian & Gongcheng's Hong Kong office. Ke Huang, a partner at MoFo in Shanghai, will follow suit and join the company in Hong Kong as a foreign-registered attorney.
Haiwen & Partner, Cyril Amarchand, White & Case, Norton Rose and Dentons Rodyk have all hired new partners.
Laura Murphy also joins the company from KPMG as special counsel, and Cath Debreceny joins as a director in the Melbourne office.
Several partners have recently left Corrs, including Alex Peace. A group of partners made a bulk leap to King & Wood Mallesons last month.
As the company expands its tax advice skills, Herbert Smith Freehills has added tax partner Jay Prasad from Australian firm Allens. Prasad is a transaction tax specialist with experience assisting corporations, financial institutions, private equity, and other managed funds on a variety of tax-related concerns.
After almost 14 years at Orrick, where he oversaw the Tokyo office and served as the leader of the IP and complex litigation and conflict resolution groups in Tokyo, Shinsuke Yakura has joined White & Case.
In order to rejoin Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. as an equity partner in its Bengaluru-based business practice, Roshan Thomas resigned from his position at the ailing edtech unicorn BYJU's.
The corporate practice of Luthra and Luthra Law Offices has grown in Bengaluru with the addition of partner Arindam Basu from Poovayya & Co.
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In house
Lauren Fisher's resignation from her position as chief legal officer follows Tegna's appointment of a new CEO.
Cellares, which claims to have created a manufacturing process that lowers the cost and expands the availability of cancer-fighting gene therapy, has appointed Jonathan Butler as general counsel.
Following his declaration that he "found retirement boring," former Geico legal head Seth Ingall rejoined the industry as chief legal officer of the Crash Champions chain of body shops.
Sabre CLO Chadwick Ho lasted seven months, and Ann Bruder lasted sixteen.
Mathias Gaertner, the group's top lawyer at the moment, will be replaced by Lukas Studer, general counsel for corporate and M&A at Holcim. Gaertner joined ABB Group as group legal chief.
Peter Campbell has taken over Gabriel Steffens' position as general attorney at US real estate investing platform Amherst Group.
Dipika Jaisinghani Aggarwal has been appointed as the first general counsel of Stoke Park, a 300-acre private sporting and luxury hotel estate in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire.
Charles Atkinson has been named general counsel of consumer healthcare company Perrigo Company, taking over for interim general counsel Todd Kingma.
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The Americas
Arnold & Porter, a Washington, D.C.-based firm, has expanded its Boston office by hiring a seasoned attorney from Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, and Brown Rudnick has added two lateral intellectual property partners to its D.C. office.
The company is hopeful that the combination of Alexander Southwell's experience and the company's dominant position in the healthcare industry will pay off.
Ian Engstrand wants to expand the company's tech and venture capital business both domestically and abroad.
Luke Laumann follows another private equity hiring in California by joining the firm's New York office.
After serving as an associate for three years in the U.S. Department of Justice, Andrew Dawson has returned to the company.
Lauren A. Nehra has become a member of Unruh Turner Burke & Frees.
Ronna Ruppelt is a new addition at Freeman Mathis. "Her decades of work in claims gives her a deep understanding of client needs in terms of best practices for processes and procedures," said Ben Mathis, the managing partner.
The transactional team at Bell Nunnally & Martin has been "slammed" with work this year, according to managing partner Christopher Trowbridge, and the firm is growing its corporate M&A practice.
Funds partner Flora Go, who has extensive expertise working with private equity firms, has joined Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. She will take over as leader of Paul Weiss' fund financing division.
The hire comes after the firm's addition of a six-person team from Shearman & Sterling at the start of the year.
Big Law firms have announced at least 10 hires in New York, mostly partners, the day after Labor Day.
"I did reach a point where a lot of my cases were sort of wrapping up," said Sonali Patel, "and it felt like a good time to see if there was the right opportunity in the private sector."
Christopher DeCresce concentrates on the banking, fintech, and financial services industries.
Jacob Kratt has joined Margolis Edelstein as a new partner in the Philadelphia office of the company.
According to Andrew Boutros, he has long-standing connections with customers in the engineering, food and beverage, government contracting, and telecommunications sectors.
In the process of the Dallas-founded firm growing its Charlotte, North Carolina, office, litigator Chelsea Corey of King & Spalding became a partner in the litigation section of Haynes and Boone.
After working for McGuireWoods for more than five years, Thomas DeSplinter joins the company.
"At the moment, my ears are listening," Nolan Kurtz remarked. "The best thing is to come in and actively listen to the partners, our lawyers, our consultants, our operations professionals and really learn from them."
Banee Pachuca has joined Winston & Strawn LLP as a partner in the Houston office. Banee joins the company as a member of the Transactions Department, specializing in the medical field.
In other news, Jones Jones elevates a supervising partner, Pashman Stein expands its ADR business, and former Superior Court Judge Thurber joins the firm.
领英推荐
The American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL) has selected Joseph R. Falcon III, a partner and intellectual property attorney, to leadership positions once more, according to a statement released by Barley Snyder.
CenterPeak now has a base in Washington, D.C. in addition to New York, California, and Texas thanks to Jeffrey Lowe.
As the firm looks to establish a footprint in New York, Linklaters has added a restructuring partner from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett through a lateral hire made in the United States. In Linklaters' New York office, Michael Torkin takes on the role of U.S. head of capital solutions for the company. He had previously worked at Sullivan & Cromwell and was a partner at Simpson Thacher since 2017.
Former M&A and corporate partner Gordon Raman joined automation solutions supplier ATS Corp. as chief legal officer. Raman was previously with Borden Ladner Gervais and Fasken Martineau DuMoulin.
The strategy of Louis-Pierre Gravelle's previous company, Bereskin & Parr, was, in his words, "ill-suited" to the kind of IP consultancy business he desired.
Lévy Bazinet has joined McCarthy Tétrault as a partner in the business law group in Montréal. With more than 18 years of expertise in project development, asset management, and mergers & acquisitions in the infrastructure and renewable energy industries, Lévy is a seasoned negotiator.
Iona Jurca, who was previously at Montreal litigation boutique Woods, has more than 10 years of experience handling complex domestic and international litigation and arbitration matters.
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Team Moves
Cozen O'Connor announced the addition of 13 new attorneys to its Vancouver office, significantly increasing its presence in Canada and advancing the firm closer to its objective of ranking among the top full-service firms in the nation.
Nine trial partners and five associates from Hunton Andrews Kurth joined Houston trial boutique on Tuesday, bringing many of their longstanding friends and former coworkers from the midsize firm back together.
A founding partner of the Malaysian legal firm Rosli Dahlan Saravana Partnership (RDS), Ong Eu Jin has left the company with ten attorneys, three of whom are partners, to form Ong Eu Jin Partnership, a boutique that focuses on mergers & acquisitions and capital markets.
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Financials:
Legal department consultant Jason Winmill said, "If you have to throw millions of dollars at somebody before, they start work, and then they start work and it doesn't work out, you are up the creek because you've paid them a lot of money,". "Sunk costs are exactly that—sunk."
"Companies have increasingly trended toward moving the compliance function to an independent organization, sitting as a peer to the legal function." based on a report by Major, Lindsey & Africa.
Slaughter and May has raised the remuneration of its recently qualified attorneys to ￡150,000, in line with other leading UK law firms. The company pushed forward its compensation review, which was supposed to take place in November.
The average equity partner profit climbed by 42% from ￡466,000 to ￡661,000, while the firm's net profit improved by ￡34.6 million to ￡50.5 million. The 12-month total turnover increased by 27% to ￡163 million by April 2024.
According to Thomson Reuters and the Melbourne Law School's 2024 Australia State of the Legal Market, demand for legal services increased by 7.5% in the 12 months leading up to June, while firm fees increased by 5%, marking the third consecutive year that rates had increased by 5% or more. As a result, fee income increased by 12.6%.
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Promotions & Appointments:
Current managing attorney Scott Dunlop, who will retire at the end of 2024 after serving in the capacity for thirty years, will be replaced by Stuart Sostmann.
After working for the Big Four firm for more than 18 years, Patrick O'Connor most recently provided financial reputation advice to businesses.
Leading government enforcer of transactions in the supermarket, retail, consumer products, and health care services sectors was Mark Seidman.
Corporate partner and previous global M&A co-chair Ed Barnett have taken over as Stephen Kensell's replacement in the position.
As Elizabeth Fine prepares to leave the governor's office, Mahanna is expected to assume the top legal position.
The Bridgeport firm promotes new associates Skylar Albertson and Luke Reynolds and adds veteran attorneys Ryan Daugherty and Margaret Donovan.
M&A partner Mauricio Valdespino, who joined the company in 2022 from the local office of White & Case, will co-manage the office with Edgar Romo, a finance partner who has been with DLA Piper in Mexico since 2016.
Mason Hayes & Curran, a business law firm, has named Conor Lynch a partner in its financial services division. Mr. Lynch will be headquartered in the company's London office, where he will be instrumental in providing financial institutions and local and foreign banks with advice on a broad range of transactions.
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Diversity & Inclusion:
Three sections of a state law that forbids gender-affirming care are the subject of a preliminary and permanent injunction request made in federal court by attorneys for Selendy Gay, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of South Carolina.
Kimberly Hulsey writes, "DEI leaders lead the charge on workplace innovation that amplifies the contributions and progression of those in both underrepresented and overrepresented communities".
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Office Openings & Closing:
Winstead, an Am Law 200 firm, sought laterals with experience in construction and land use law, as well as litigation, when it opened in Nashville.
The company closes its operations in China, joining a lengthy list of American law companies that have done so in the last 18 months.
Will Grimsley, managing member of the new office, "Tampa is a large, growing market that offers a broader range of practice areas that complement what we do across our footprint, but have not been doing in Florida.”
Norma Pedroza Chavez, managing partner, comes from Sims, Lawrence & Broghammer to the office.
The firm's 800-strong partnership is impacted by the seismic changes, which were disclosed internally on Friday. It also coincides with the firm's ten-year anniversary in Johannesburg.
The US legal firm Vinson & Elkins has opened an office in Dublin's city centre as part of its expansion into Ireland. The expansion intends to improve the firm's ability to service clients in the aviation sector and increases its global presence. The firm is based in New York.
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Mergers & Alliances:
It can be challenging to find the ideal match in any relationship. When thinking about a legal merger, many elements come into play, such as competing egos, incompatible cultures, opposition to a takeover, and inevitably, disagreements overcompensation.
Lupkin became the chair of Rottenstreich Farley's commercial litigation practice after joining the firm.
Troutman Pepper Locke will be the name of the merged company.
The firm's M&A research says that activity will be driven by lower U.S. interest rates.
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Technology & Innovation:
This article discusses how Gen AI can help lawyers to transform unprofitable practices into new revenue streams.
One associate bemoans the fact that "working with tools like these is unbelievably difficult."
The Australian corporate legal company Allens has launched a training program aimed at equipping its staff and attorneys with the necessary knowledge and self-assurance to utilize the different technologies.
China is not new to using AI agents as online "robot judges." Is it possible for that to occur here?
The Australian corporate legal company Allens has launched a training program aimed at equipping its staff and attorneys with the necessary knowledge and self-assurance to utilize the different technologies.
According to WongPartnership, the collaboration with Harvey will result in innovative AI solutions that boost productivity and save time for its attorneys.
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Market Commentary:
"When partners see their peers are being treated that way by leadership, it typically results in less loyalty across the board," stated one recruiter regarding the effects of de-equitizations.
While restrictive covenants in the M&A context are not the main focus of this ban, given the lack of certainty in the current legal landscape and the potential hurdles to enforcement, buyers would be well-advised to find other ways to incentivize sellers not to compete with a target company after an M&A closing.
Hershey Company general counsel James Turoff offers insights from within the company on the quickly changing legal services industry.
Salary is undoubtedly a significant component, but this decision has effects that go beyond money.
John Gilmore, co-founder of BarkerGilmore said, "It is too difficult for anyone to predict the outcome for the year, but we are optimistic that there will be a place for business-minded lawyers with high emotional intelligence."
Milbank's chair said, "I'd be delighted if other firms wanted us to pay more than anyone else, but I don't suspect that will be the case."
John Hall of Hall Booth Smith said, "I think the businesses have to pay attention and hire people that they think are going to be a good, long-term investment and pass on those who seem to be moving further on self- and short-term gain".
Local lawyers claim that delays in deal closings are negatively affecting the financial expectations of legal advisers and that it is becoming less and less likely for a law practice to be able to agree on fixed legal fees.
Following Brexit, British attorneys were unable to register and practice law in Greece, which precluded them from providing legal advice in crucial industries including finance, insurance, and shipping.