Neil Stocks, the high profile chief counsel at SBC Warburg, will play second fiddle to Mark Harding, the chief counsel at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), following the merger of the two banks.
Harding has been made European general counsel of the investment division of the two merging Swiss banks and his first appointment has been to make Stocks his deputy.
Harding will also be in charge of legal and compliance in the Middle East and Africa in the merged bank, as he was at UBS.
With 3,000 jobs being axed in London, it is almost certain that lawyers will face redundancies, but Harding said that he did not yet know who or how many would be going.
Stocks, with SBC for 12 years, has built up a team of about 15 lawyers, while Harding, who joined UBS from Clifford Chance two years ago, has a team of about 30.
Stocks handled the bank's acquisition of SG Warburg in 1995 and led one of the largest and most active departments of any bank in the City.
He won The Lawyer's In-House Banking Finance Lawyer of the Year award in 1996 and the Lawyer of the Year award in 1995.
