Camerons to close California office after electricity deal

Cameron McKenna is closing its San Francisco practice after just eight months.

Robert Derry-Evans, managing partner at Cameron McKenna, is upbeat over the closure, saying the office had been set up to deal with the restructuring of the Californian electricity industry.

However speaking to The Lawyer in November last year when the office was fully established, Derry-Evans said the number of instructions the office had received justified a permanent office.

Derry-Evans says: "The office came into being because of the restructuring work. That was a two-year long job. Now that is completed."

He argues that other work the firm has picked up in the area can still be dealt with from the Washington DC office.

He says the office will "almost certainly" close in September after a meeting between the London and North American partners examined the viability of having three offices in the US, where "there is a hell of a lot going on between the Washington and Toronto offices".

US partner Michael Hindus, who headed up the office in San Francisco, will relocate to the Washington office while the rest of the lawyers in the soon to be defunct office have also been offered jobs.