People moves
DLA Piper has appointed Scottish corporate head Simon Rae (above) to the role of managing partner for Glasgow and Edinburgh, while UK head of litigation and regulatory David Gray has taken on the management of Manchester.
Simon Rae
Move of the week
Rae replaces Bruce Westbrook, who will retire from the partnership at the end of this year but will remain as a consultant. Gray replaces Simon Woolley, who is also retiring.
UK
LONDON
City firm Marriott Harrison has bulked up its corporate practice with the hire of partner Lance Feaver. He joins from LG, where he was a partner.
Farrer & Co has appointed John Clark as a partner in its property finance practice. He joins from DLA Piper, where he was a partner.
US firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has welcomed Isaac Lidsky, a former clerk to US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to its London office. Lidsky will spend a year in the office focusing on US appellate litigation.
Winckworth Sherwood has appointed Carol Ellinas as a partner in its private client department. She joins from family solicitors Bross Bennett, where she was also a partner.
Property firm Maples Teesdale has hired Katherine Watts as a partner in its commercial property team. Watts was previously at Lovells, where she was a partner in the London real estate practice for eight years. She specialises in real estate related financing, secured lending, corporate owner/occupier issues and investment and portfolio transactions.
SOUTH EAST
Four trainees have qualified at East Anglian firm Prettys. Shaan Burton, Mark Crebbin and Claire Thomson have qualified into the shipping and insurance team, while Sarah Grundy has joined the commercial litigation team.
SOUTH WEST
Taunton firm Pardoes Solicitors has appointed Kit O’Brien as a partner in its family team and Nick Dell as a partner and head of commercial and residential property. O’Brien joins from Porter Dodson, where she was a partner. Dell joins from Veale Wasbrough, where he was also a partner.
MIDLANDS
Nottingham firm Berryman has bolstered its private client department with the addition of three new solicitors. Kirstin Thompson joins from Cobbetts, where she was a solicitor in the Birmingham office. Amanda Gale joins from Roythornes Solicitors in Nottingham, where she was a solicitor. Vijay Singh joins from the Cambridge office of Mills & Reeve, where he had just completed his training contract.
Howes Percival has taken on new partner Nick James in its property team based in Leicester. James join Howes Percival from Fishers in Ashby de la Zouch.
NORTH
Williamsons Solicitors in Hull has appointed Matthew Breakell as a solicitor. He joins from Hull firm Andrew Jackson, where he was a solicitor.
Sefton firm Breens has appointed newly qualified solicitor Jennifer Wilkinson to its later life planning team.
NORTH WEST
Personal injury firm Scott Rees & Co has promoted six to its partnership, including its first non-lawyer partner. Finance manager Stuart McKinnon has made partner alongside solicitors Nigat Ahmed, James Driscoll, Karla Kingston,
Chris Walker and Simon Shaw.
SCOTLAND
Brodies has bolstered its corporate practice with the hire of William McIntosh as a partner. McIntosh joins from Lindsays, where he was a partner.
EUROPE
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton partner David Gottlieb has transferred from New York to Moscow. Gottlieb has been involved with the firm’s M&A and capital markets practices in Russia for more than a decade.
US
Baker Hostetler has hired three partners and one counsel for its New York office. Litigators Mark Kornfeld and Deborah Renner join from Hogan & Hartson and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal respectively, where they were both partners. Gonzalo Zeballos, also a litigator, joins from American International Group, where he was assistant general counsel. Litigation counsel Timothy Pfeifer joins from White & Case, where he was an associate.
David Martland has been named head of Nixon Peabody’s M&A and private company transactions practices. He succeeds Philip Taub, who became chair of the firm’s business and finance department earlier this month.
THE BAR
The Bar Council has appointed three new officers for 2010. Brick Court Chambers’ Nicholas Green QC has been elected to the position of chairman, Peter Lodder QC of 2 Bedford Row will become vice-chair ,and Andrew Mitchell QC
of 33 Chancery Lane will become treasurer. They take up their posts on 1 January 2010.
