In a dramatic turnaround, White & Case has lost its case against Hong Kong firm Deacons over a team of star insolvency partners the US firm recruited in summer 2002. When White & Case poached rated Deacons partners Mark Fairbairn and Edward Cairns, Deacons hit back with a Hong Kong lawsuit claiming the two were […]
Gorg has poached a three partner team from Luther Menold to launch the firm’s Hamburg office. Klaus von Gierke, Volker Alvensleben and Frank Weberndorfer join the firm next January, taking with them a team of Luther Menold associates and support staff. Dr Ulrich Jüngst, managing partner of Gorg, said: “We are delighted to welcome such […]
French Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton partner Laurent Cohen-Tanugi has jumped ship to become general counsel at pharmaceuticals company Sanofi-Synthélabo. Cohen-Tanugi succeeds Jean-Pierre Kerjouan, who remains at the 34,000-employee company as adviser to the chairman. Corporate lawyer Cohen-Tanugi joined Cleary Gottlieb in 1982 and became a partner in 1991.
With litigation work in decline, tough competition is forcing London firms to rethink their strategies. UK shipping firms in Greece are battling against a significant contraction in the volume of litigation work, traditionally the backbone for the Athens-based practices. Few believe that the decline is merely cyclical, and coupled with intense competition in the ship […]
US firm Dorsey & Whitney has poached corporate and M&A lawyer Richard Yao from the Shanghai office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and has promised more lateral hires in a bid to bolster the firm’s presence in China. Dorsey continues its Asian expansion following the hire of Japanese corporate finance lawyer Takashi Suzuki from Mori Hamada […]
What’s going on at Manches? The Lawyer is having a hard time keeping track of how many heads of department the firm lost this year, and has lost count of the number of partner departures ages ago (although we reckon it’s three group heads and around 12 partners in the last 18 months). The latest […]
Jones Day Gouldens’ head of real estate and environmental Linda Fletcher has jumped ship to launch an environmental practice at London office of Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker. Fletcher joined Gouldens in 1998 from Reynolds Porter Chamberlain. She has also worked inhouse at Marks and Spencer, and Swedish paper and packaging company SCA Corporate. Recently […]
Project finance partner Roger McCormick has left magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for US practice King & Spalding LLP, which opened its London office earlier this year. McCormick will be the firm’s first English law qualified partner in London. “I eagerly anticipate helping expand its [King & Spaldings’] presence through the continued growth of […]
Pinsents property partner Joanna Lawson King has been appointed as head of property in Birmingham after David Philpot, who currently leads the team, announced his decision to step down. Lawson King will take over the reins from 1 November. She has been a partner at Pinsents for three years prior to which she was a […]
There were concerns this week from civil libertarians about how ministers propose to side-step human rights legislation with their new ’emergency powers’ laws. Parliament is currently consulting on a draft Civil Contingencies Bill that will provide a single framework to replace the existing emergency powers legislation that dates from the 1920s. “We don’t argue for […]
There are concerns that the dual role of Legal Services Complaints Commissioner and Ombudsman could create conflicts of interest and be susceptible to judicial review. Earlier in the month the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer announced the formation of an independent Legal Services Complaints Commissioner and gave the powers to the present […]
Nearly six out of ten expert witnesses have a blacklist of law firms that they would never work with again, according to a recent survey of expert witnesses. According to an anonymous survey of 160 expert witnesses published by legal training consultancy Bond Solon, 59 per cent of respondents said that there were firms of […]