Former Gianni team launch as Legance

The Italian market has a new domestic player, as the 17 partners leaving Gianni Origoni Grippo & Partners launch their own firm called Legance.

Former Gianni Origoni managing partner Giovanni Nardulli is managing partner of Legance, which numbers 85 lawyers.

Meanwhile at Gianni Origoni, Franco Gianni will stay on as senior partner, installing Rome corporate partner Tomaso Cenci as the new managing partner. Name partner Gianbattista Origoni has a place on the executive committee, along with corporate partners Gianluca Ghersini and Ottaviano Sanseverino, real estate partner Domenico Tulli and banking partner Marco Amedeo Zaccagnini.

Legance's executive committee will include former Gianni Origoni executive members Alberto Giampieri, Filippo Troisi and Bruno Bartocci. The firm has offices in Milan and Rome.

The split with Gianni Origoni came as a result of a dispute over the firm's strategy and culture, with the departing partners favouring an institutional firm structure with the emphasis on the Milan and Rome offices.

It is not the first time that Gianni Origoni partners have left to set up their own firm. At the start of 2006, four ex-partners launched corporate and capital markets practice Labruna Mazziotti Segni in Rome.