Herbert Smith’s former Tokyo managing partner Steve Lewis, who until recently was leading the firm’s Brazil initiative, has left the firm to join Bingham.
Following his 10 years as Tokyo office managing partner, Lewis relocated to London last year to review Herbert Smith’s options for developing a presence in Latin America, with a particular focus on Brazil. Peter Godwin, who was head of the firm’s Tokyo dispute resolution practice, was then elected to take over the top role in Tokyo.
Lewis will join Bingham as a partner and will spend his time between the firm’s London and Tokyo offices. In Tokyo, Bingham has a 68-lawyer foreign law joint enterprise known as Bingham McCutchen Murase, Sakai Mimura Aizawa. Most of the lawyers in Tokyo are Japanese bengoshi.
Lewis’s practice focuses primarily on M&A and during his time at Herbert Smith he worked on transactions for many large Japanese companies, including Sumitomo, NTT DoCoMo, Mitsui Itochu, Marubeni and INPEX.
Lewis’s departure comes in the same week that Herbert Smith partners gave the green light to the firm’s merger with Freehills (28 June 2012). He is the latest high-level partner who has left Herbert Smith in Asia. Earlier this week, TheLawyer.com reported that Herbert Smith’s long-serving Shanghai partner Simon Meng also resigned (25 June 2012).
Herbert Smith declined to comment on Lewis’s departure or the future of the firm’s Brazil initiative. It is understood that the integration with Freehills, as well as the firm’s plans for launches in US and Korea, will have a higher priority.
Readers' comments (13)
I am no doubt being unfair | 29-Jun-2012 11:32 am
Why am I thinking about Dewey & LeBoeuf as I read this?
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Anon | 29-Jun-2012 12:41 pm
The merger can't come soon enough.
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Legal trolls ahoy | 29-Jun-2012 2:25 pm
"I am no doubt being unfair | 29-Jun-2012 11:32 am
Why am I thinking about Dewey & LeBoeuf as I read this?!"
Probably due to the same lack of mental capacity that results in you thinking about a cymbal-banging toy monkey when attempting to advise a client.
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Anonymous | 29-Jun-2012 2:34 pm
This ship be sinking!
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Anonymous | 29-Jun-2012 2:44 pm
11:32 am - because you are being a paranoid sensationalist caught up in the general vitriol which nowadays sweeps these boards and frankly isn't befitting of someone working the legal profession.
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Anonymous | 29-Jun-2012 3:27 pm
watch Australia, the exits start next week as unhappy Freehills partners hit the road
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Anonymous | 29-Jun-2012 7:31 pm
I agree with Anonymous at 11.32 am. Most of us want to see an intelligent debate in these pages. The last few days on this and the Freehills merger have seen little more than schoolboy standard vitriol.
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Anonymous | 29-Jun-2012 8:23 pm
Anonymous | 29-Jun-2012 2:44 pm - hear, hear!
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Anonymous | 29-Jun-2012 10:55 pm
Steve Lewis, who opened the Tokyo office of HS in 2000, made that office successful and profitable in a short space of time. Plenty of HS partners owe their promotions to him in Tokyo, as he is one of the few partners who put their necks on the block in promoting. He will be a loss to HS and the direction of that firm is reflected in the Tokyo office never being the same after he left Tokyo.
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cymbal-banging monkey | 1-Jul-2012 6:24 am
Declining profits, a failed alliance in Europe, an increasing number of high level partner departures, booted out of the Magic Circle by Legal Business last month, a huge number of underperforming partners and an increasing debt load. Indeed. Why on earth would anyone think of Dewey LeBouf?
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