Herbert Smith prepares for September launch in NYC
Herbert Smith is set to launch in New York in September as the firm prepares to vote on lateral hires for the new office in the coming weeks.
The firm had been looking at a July launch for the new office but has pushed that back in order to get the summer holidays out of the way first. The firm has already taken on some service accommodation and is now negotiating a lease for its office.
London-based international arbitration partner Chris Parker is set to permanently relocate to New York for the launch and partners at Herbert Smith will vote in the coming weeks on the proposed incoming lateral hires that will staff the office.
The new office will provide litigation advice for the firm’s existing network clients and for US clients that want to instruct Herbert Smith in other jurisdictions. Dispute resolution partner Tony Dempster said that the firm has no plans to stray into corporate work in New York or to take on the top Wall Street firms on their own turf by targeting the same clients. Herbert Smith has referral relationships with a number of top New York firms, like Cravath Swaine & Moore and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
“The office will be very much disputes focused with three elements,” said Dempster. “The first is international arbitration: Chris Parker is moving across from the London office and we’re also in discussions with another lateral hire. The second area is investigations and we’re in discussions with a number of laterals there, and the third is cross-border litigation.”
The decision to launch in New York was announced to partners at a meeting in September and was part of Project Blue Sky – the firm’s blueprint for internationalisation (2 January 2012). According to Dempster the decision to launch in the US also got buy-in from the firm’s Australian merger partner Freehills.
New York is just the first of Herbert Smith’s proposed international launches under Project Blue Sky, with new offices in Korea and Guinea (21 May 2012) expected later in the year and Germany on the cards for 2013 (10 February 2012).
On 28 June Herbert Smith announced that its partners had voted in favour of a full financial merger with Australian firm Freehills (28 June 2012).
Readers' comments (10)
meh | 3-Jul-2012 1:59 pm
Can't imagine many high-profile US litigators will be lining up to join Herbert Smith. Disparity in profits between what a Herbies partner earns and what the Wall Street firms pay is too great.
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Recruiter | 3-Jul-2012 2:37 pm
Maybe there are still a few Dewey LeBoeuf partners who haven't managed to find a new job yet. None of my candidates were interested.
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D Willis | 3-Jul-2012 2:47 pm
Opening a New York office will put us one step closer to merging with Cravath. Yes... We will merge with Cravath next. Yes... I know that the partners of Cravath secretly wants to merge with us. They wants the Freebies. Yes... my precious.
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hmmm | 3-Jul-2012 3:13 pm
Will be interesting to see what impact this has on the referrals that Herbies gets from the Wall Street firms. I'm sure Herbies will try to spin it as "we're not competing with you" but we all know that's not true.
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Anonymous | 3-Jul-2012 3:19 pm
I'm surprised they can even find New York on a map let alone open an office there. That Stibbe conference room they used to call their New York office was a joke.
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Noah | 3-Jul-2012 3:27 pm
Agreed. That conference room of an office was pretty lame.
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herbies litigator | 3-Jul-2012 3:45 pm
Opening our New York office might have a negative impact on the referrals the boys in London corporate get from the Wall Street firms but it shouldn't have much of an impact on anyone else at the firm. And we all know the boys in London corporate don't much matter these days.
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Anonymous | 3-Jul-2012 10:35 pm
I just don't see how this NY or Australia stuff helps Herbert Smith with it's fundamental problem.
Which is that the London office - know as Lazy London Partners in the overseas offices - is massively overstaffed with underperforming partners who neither find work nor suck it up & get behind supporting client winning overseas offices. And so is staffed with not-fit-for-purpose associates with the full raft of entitlement 'massage at desks' thing.
The much vaunted Disputes practice is actually not that profitable & is more & more missing out on new world resource disputes & prone to being elbowed out generally by competitors.
They've just taken a massive China bet by taking on an Australian practice with some vague suggestion that's an Asian practice augmenting move, taken on a load of common law lawyers (when they've got maybe 250 too many already), are using cash they haven't got to expand at the top of a market, are depleted beyond belief in Asia (& bereft of quality), are losing partners from their one Magic Circle quality office (Moscow - where a competitor could take 80% of their Russia Practice with just 3-6 judicious hires), have lost an extradordinary number of partners over the last 2 years (to the point where it is questionable whether but for Matt Elmsley, maybe a couple in Energy & a few in Disputes & Moscow there is anybody left that anybody else wants), & seem to be digging further & further into the hole whilst avoiding facing the reality.
To top it they have a Managing Partner who was a total failure in Asia & destroyed FIG, & still seem to be doing rewards for failure, witness the former head of corporate's move to Singapore when he should have been ETL.
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Anonymous | 3-Jul-2012 11:20 pm
Herbies litigators have really taken back control of the firm in recent months. Herbies might merge with one of the US litigation powerhouses like Paul Weiss
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Anonymous | 17-Jul-2012 10:29 am
hahaha. not gonna happen. Herbies profits are not even close to Paul Weiss. top Paul Weiss partner makes over ten times as much as top Herbies partner and Herbies is only going down more after the recent freebies merger and spate of high profile partner departures. why merge? Paul Weiss could easily hire away anyone they wanted to from Herbies
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