Chadbourne snaps up Altheimer offices

Chadbourne & Parke has acquired the Warsaw and Kiev offices of bankrupt Chicago giant Altheimer & Gray.

Chadbourne started talking to Altheimer’s Poland and Ukraine offices in the summer, and agreed the deal with the US firm’s Poland and Ukraine partners in late October. However, Chadbourne was unable to finalise the deal until 10 December, as it first had to be approved by a group of former Altheimer partners on the dissolution committee and then by the State of Illinois, where Altheimer is in bankruptcy proceedings.

Chadbourne managing partner Charles O’Neill said: “We decided we wanted to take the offices last September, but it took until December to jump through all the hoops.”

The move gives Chadbourne an extra 44 lawyers – 35 in Poland and nine in Ukraine – and increases the number of offices at the firm to 10.

The rest of Altheimer’s Central and Eastern European and Asian network, comprising offices in Bratislava, Bucharest, Istanbul, Prague and Shanghai, was snapped up by Salans last September.