Orrick benefits from latest Freshfields exit

The departures at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer mounted as an Italian project finance partner headed for the door.

Franco Campomori is leaving for US firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, where he will become a partner in the banking and finance group.

Campomori is the second Milan-based partner to leave Freshfields for a US firm this week, following equity capital markets partner Carlo Kostka’s move to Dewey Ballantine, as first reported by The Lawyer (30 April).

Orrick’s Italian capability is now boosted to 39 lawyers.

The end of the financial year, which for Freshfields came on Monday, was seen as a neat point for partners to take away their books of business. The financial year-end draws to a close a punishing restructuring that has seen the magic circle firm’s equity partnership culled to 420 partners from a high point of 520 18 months ago.

Campomori’s exit follows a mass departure of partners last week, as exclusively reported by The Lawyer (30 April): China head Douglas Markel left to launch a Beijing office for Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; projects partners Patrick Wallace and Andrew Bonser went to Simmons & Simmons; Dewey took litigation partner Alastair Crawford in addition to Kostka to launch its UK litigation capability; finance parnter Rex Rosales has headed to Reed Smith; and it is also understood that insurance litigation partner Roger Enock is leaving, although his new firm is unknown. Corporate partner Annabel Sykes and tax partner Roger Berner are retiring.

Gunhild Schäfer was appointed a lawyer at the highest German civil law court. The German secretary of justice, the Bundesjustizministerium, has admitted Schäfer to the small group of lawyers allowed to represent clients at the top level, called the Bundesgerichtshof.