McGrigors loses partner to Kilpatrick Stockton

McGrigors (formerly Klegal) has lost its highly-rated head of employment to Kilpatrick Stockton after he refused to sign the firm’s new partnership agreement.

Tim Johnson jumped ship to the US firm last month, joining as a consultant, and was voted in as a partner at Kilpatrick yesterday (April 1).

Johnson was one of a group of six partners who founded KPMG’s legal arm Klegal after leaving the PricewaterhouseCooper-tied firm Arnheim Tite & Lewis in 1999.

With the break-up of Klegal, following KPMG’s separation, McGrigors, which merged with Klegal in 2002, structured a new partnership agreement which Johnson refused to sign.

He said: "They wanted me to stay but I refused. Klegal was going in a different direction to how it had been, for my practice I need an international network and I have that with Kilpatrick Stockton."

Johnson acted on large cross-boarder cases including on the SwissAir/CrossAir restructuring which spread across 67 jurisdictions.

Following a stream of departures, only a handful of legacy Klegal lawyers now remain at McGrigors.