3 March 2003

In a move that will shock London’s magic circle, leading corporate partner Tim Emmerson is leaving Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for US firm Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy.Emmerson, who has practised at Freshfields for 11 years, will become Milbank’s first UK qualified corporate partner in London when he joins the firm in April. The surprise announcement […]

Eversheds has lost Birmingham senior partner and highly-rated property lawyer Adrian Bland to Midlands rival Wragge & Co.The move follows a series of attempts by Eversheds to hold on to Bland, who last year ran for the firm’s managing partner job before throwing his weight behind unsuccessful candidate Michael Brown.At Wragges, Bland will become group […]

Eversheds is battling to come up with an offer that will keep former managing partner candidate Adrian Bland at the firm.Bland, who is currently Birmingham senior partner, is understood to be in talks with management about his future with Eversheds. His move to a competitor would be a serious loss to the firm. Bland stood […]

Hammonds looks set to lose its entire commercial insurance practice of around 35 lawyers.The Lawyer has discovered that eight partners of Hammonds’ commercial insurance team are holding talks with senior partner Richard Burns and managing partner Chris Jones about setting up an independent niche insurance practice.The team had the opportunity to leave Hammonds when the […]

Zahida Manzoor, the new legal services ombudsman, has pledged to take a robust stance to raise complaints handling standards after the office received 1,750 new cases in the last 12 months.The new cases were from members of the public who remained dissatisfied with the way their complaints had been dealt with by the lawyers’ own […]

DLA has swooped on DJ Freeman’s property department, winning over property finance head John Clark, and three of his fellow partners.Joining Clark at DLA will be fellow partners Terry Green, Stephen O’Brien and Helen Dyer. It is understood that a number of assistants are also set to join DLA, although the final head count is […]

The Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) has appointed Pamela Castle as chairman of its board of trustees. Castle, formerly the head of environmental law at CMS Cameron McKenna, joined ELF on 1 March 2003. She replaces Stephen Hockman QC, leader of the south eastern circuit, who remains on the board of trustees.Castle, who is also co-chair […]

John Verrill, Vice President of insolvency professionals’ association R3 has slammed the UK’s high street banks for failing to apply a Privy Council ruling that says they should pay out millions to key creditors of insolvent companies, including former employees. Speaking at the Future of Corporate Rescue Culture conference last week, Verril said, “Banks are […]

Linklaters has named its managing partner of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as the new global head of capital markets.Nick Eastwell, who has been in charge of the firm’s growth in the CEE region since 1999, is taking over responsibility for the global practice from Michael Canby who is returning to full-time fee-earning. Canby, who […]