Couderts loses Thompson

The London office of US firm Coudert Brothers has lost one of its founding partners to City firm Richards Butler.

Hugh Thompson will take up his appointment as a banking partner later this month.

He rejoins a UK firm after six years at Couderts. Prior to that he was head of banking at Lawrence Graham.

After founding the London office of Couderts, Thompson oversaw the development of the firm's English law banking practice worldwide.

Thompson, who was one of the first UK lawyers to join a US firm, said: "The type of work U will be doing at Richards Butler will be very similar to what I am doing now, but there are advantages to working for a large, full-scale UK practice."