Senior Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) litigation partner Simon Bushell is set to join the London office of US firm Latham & Watkins in the latest exit from the firm.
Bushell currently co-chairs HSF’s London corporate fraud and asset tracing practice and is head of the firm’s crisis management practice. He specialises in Russia-related claims and founded its Russian disputes practice.
Bushell led for the government of Tajikistan in the big-billing Talco case, in which the state-owned smelter claimed to have been defrauded out of hundreds of millions of pounds (15 September 2008).
Bushell’s departure marks the third exit by an HSF partner in the firm’s disputes team in roughly six months, following Linklaters’ hire of regulatory duo Martyn Hopper and Nikunj Kiri (29 January 2013).
In 2011 corporate crime partner Peter Burrell left the firm to join Willkie Farr & Gallagher’s City office as part of its launch of a UK anti-bribery practice (9 May 2011).
Among other exits, HSF corporate partner Will Pearce resigned last November to join Davis Polk & Wardwell’s growing UK law practice (12 November 2012).
HSF and Latham declined to comment.
Readers' comments (8)
Anonymous | 7-Feb-2013 2:36 pm
Is this the first one of many to come in the new year?
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Puzzled | 7-Feb-2013 2:36 pm
Why do herbies partners always seem to go to american firms?
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Anonymous | 7-Feb-2013 2:37 pm
It appears to be a torrid time for Herbies litigators. What was once the cream of the City litigation market has now turned into a sour mess. Bushell's exit, no doubt for the US dollar, will be a blow.
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Anonymous | 7-Feb-2013 2:37 pm
Ooo-err. Herbies have lost a few litigators now, haven't they?
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Workshyholic | 7-Feb-2013 2:47 pm
Quality hire for Lathams. Who else have they got lined up I wonder?
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Uh-Oh | 7-Feb-2013 4:53 pm
On the litigation side, recent departures of note include Christa Band (probably the most important loss), Simon Bushell, Peter Burrell, Martyn Hopper and Kevin Lloyd (unsurprisingly, The Lawyer's *incisive* market commentary doesn't even mention two of these names). Does anyone actually know why they are all leaving? General under-performance, lower PEP than peers, silo mentality across the litigation department, lots of unhappy associates, still no coherent international strategy? At least they still have Robert Hunter and Gary Milner-Moore (two very, very good lawyers).
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Vercingetorix | 7-Feb-2013 4:56 pm
It isnt just litigators. They have lost a senior corporate partner to Davis Polk.
The HSF merger looks in retrospect to have been seriously unwise.
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2013 1:04 am
Christa Band is in The Lawyer's own Hot 100 this year, so her omission from the list of high profile departures is even more glaring.
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