New recruits double pay at Cadwaladers

Six more City lawyers are likely to have doubled their pay by accepting offers to join the London office of US firm Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft.

Simmons & Simmons' insolvency partner James Roome is going, together with insolvency assistant Yvette Croucher. Croucher is understood to have been tempted by Cadwaladers' London salary for three-year qualifieds of up to £75,000.

Cadwaladers has also taken Linklaters tax assistant Sarah Squires and Norton Rose's insolvency assistant Linda Davies plus two newly qualifieds.

Average profits per partner at Cadwaladers last year were around £400,000.

US partner Mitchell Sonkin, a member of Cadwalader's management committee denied reports that former Freshfields partner James Starkey and former Clifford Chance insurance insolvency partner Andrew Wilkinson had been guaranteed a £400,000 profit share.



Another US firm, believed to be Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, is currently offering a salary up to $275,000 (£167,000) - nearly twice the rate at UK firms - for a UK junior partner to service its existing global clients from London. They do not want the lawyer to bring new business.