Moves round-up: 8 September 2008
• Shoosmiths has hired a former HBJ Gateley Wareing partner to lead its restructuring and insolvency group. Partner James Keates will be based in Birmingham.
• Linklaters is to ship two partners out to the Middle East to strengthen its Dubai office. Capital markets partner Richard O-Callaghan and banking partner James Martin are set to make the move.
• Eversheds has taken on Kate Newman as an associate in the competition team. She was formerly at Mallesons Stephens Jaques in Sydney.
• Beachcroft has hired new pensions partner Neil Bhan to its employment team. He was previously at Ashurst, where he was a senior associate.
• CMS alliance firm CMS Derks Star Busmann has promoted associate Erik Vorst to corporate partner. He has been at the firm since 2002.
• City firm Royds has poached Moore Blatch’s head of commercial property Gareth Williams. He will lead Royds’ commercial property team in London.
• Russell Jones & Walker has appointed a new partner in the personal injury department. Kimberley Owen arrives from Davies Arnold Cooper and will be based in London.
• Leeds and Bradford firm Gordons has hired Alison Wright from local rival Godloves. She joins the personal law group under new head of department Rachel Tunnicliffe. The banking and finance department has also been boosted with the appointment of former Stephenson Harwood associate Adam Gatti.
• Anne Boy, a partner at Raeburn Christie Clark & Wallace, has been appointed to the Law Society Conveyancing Committee.
• The Seattle office of K&L Gates has taken on Allen Baden as a partner in the IP practice. He joins from the Silicon Valley office of
Kenyon & Kenyon.
• Australian M&A partner Braddon Jolley has joined Corrs Chambers Westgarth from Freehills.
• DMH Stallard has hired IP partner Nick Kounoupias to its Gatwick office. He was previously head of litigation at the MCPS/PRS Music Alliance, where he managed the music anti-piracy unit.
• Litigation boutique Kingslegal has hired two new assistants to its Fareham office. Cynthia Marshall previously worked in-house at Admiral Underwriting Agencies, while Nicolette Barsdorf-Liebchen joins from Shoosmiths.
• Black Country firm George Green has promoted Amanda Elwell to partner. She will lead the firm’s private client department.
• Trainees Kirsteen Durrant and Victoria Elliott have qualified as solicitors at Peterborough-based Greenwoods Solicitors. The firm has also hired criminal defence assistant solicitor Jason Stevens from local firm Hegarty Solicitors.
• Dr Rachel Davies retired as chairman of the Employment Tribunals (England & Wales) on 31 August.
• Corporate partner Neil Anderson has joined Ledingham Chalmers in Aberdeen. He was previously a partner at Biggart Baillie.
• Helen Mifflin has been appointed as a circuit judge in the Wales Circuit. She will based at Swansea Civil Justice Centre as of 26 September.
• Judge James Pyke is due to take early retirement at the age of 65. He was made a circuit judge in 1989.
• New Zealand partners Andrew Abernethy of Bell Gully and Andrew Lewis of Simpson Grierson have been recruited to Norton Rose’s Dubai office.
• East Anglia clinical negligence specialist Kester Cunningham John has hired Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp as a partner. She joins from Bolt Burdon Kemp.
• London-based solicitors and parliamentary agent Sharpe Pritchard has hired two in-house lawyers from local government: projects assistant Tim Farr from Cambridgeshire County Council and planning assistant Lorna Bowrey from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
