Mishcons exodus as staff quit firm in Julius' wake

Defamation partner Simon Gallant, a litigation partner and three litigation assistants have joined the stream of resignations from Mishcon de Reya.

Gallant will still work at the firm one day a week under a consultancy agreement and will spend four days a week as legal adviser and legal affairs director at the advertisers' trade body, the Institute for Practitioners in Advertising.

To avoid conflicts of interest with his work at Mishcons, it is understood Gallant, who was only made an equity partner two years ago, has agreed not to act for advertising agencies while at the firm.

Head of insolvency and litigation partner Julie Killip also resigned from the firm two weeks ago and is no longer working there. However, it is not known whether she has taken up a post elsewhere.

Litigation assistants Tim Clarke, Kate Hatton and James Hardy have also resigned. Tim Clarke's destination was not known last week, but Hardy has joined the corporate department of a City firm and Hatton has gone to Herbert Smith.

Their departures follow the announcement last month of the resignation of Anthony Julius, the head of litigation and another leading defamation lawyer, who will work at the firm three days a week as a consultant from mid April. In the interim Julius' seat on the three-member executive committee that runs the firm has been taken by sports partner Tony Morton-Hooper.

Media partner Jonathan Cameron, the firm's press spokesman, said that if any other contenders for the post arose, there would be an election in mid April.

Over the past year, nine partners a quarter of the partnership have resigned from the equity of the firm.

Cameron stressed that there was no one cause for all the departures: "People are following their own stars and their own careers," he said.