CCRW and Bingham Dana target global insolvency

Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells (CCRW) and US firm Bingham Dana are both targeting cross-border insolvency work - recruiting partners in New York and London respectively.

The New York office of CCRW is boosting its transatlantic insolvency capability with the arrival of Morgan Lewis & Bockius partners Margot Schoholtz and Mark Liscio.

And Bingham Dana, one of the strongest bankruptcy practices in the US, is taking on its first UK-qualified partner in London from rival Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft.

James Roome is moving to the firm to strengthen its global financial restructuring practice, which already includes Tina Brozman, the former chief bankruptcy judge of the Southern District of New York, and leading restructuring lawyer Richard Gitlin.

Adrian Cohen, insolvency and restructuring partner at Clifford Chance in London, says that clients are demanding a more global practice. "A lot of the work we do on the insolvency side is cross-border, a lot of our clients are overseas and a lot of the businesses we are restructuring are multi-jurisdictional," he says.

"The funding for European businesses often comes from New York, and the nature of the work that we get demands that we have workout lawyers across the globe."

Bingham Dana is based in Boston, and Brozman and Gitlin are two of the country's leaders in insolvency. Brozman was the judge on the Maxwell cross-border insolvency proceedings, the first international bankruptcy of its kind, and Gitlin was one of the lawyers handling the US side of it.

Managing partner Jay Zimmerman says: "Adding James Roome in London is a perfect fit. We now have a team in place with unrivalled ability to handle the most complex financial restructurings under US and UK law."

Bingham Dana is now recruiting in London for UK-qualified project finance and finance lawyers, and will boost the insolvency practice under Roome.

Zimmerman says that he hopes the group will reach 20 UK lawyers in the "foreseeable future".