Soon to be merged firm CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang has revealed the heads of its new practice groups, with CMS taking the bulk of the leadership roles.
Just one Nabarro and one Olswang partner will lead a practice area single-handedly when the merger goes live on 1 May 2017.
Nabarro senior partner Ciaran Carvalho will lead the global real estate group at the combined firm, while Olswang partner Iain Stanisfield will lead the UK commercial practice. CMS Stuttgart partner Dirk Loycke will lead the commercial practice globally.
Elsewhere CMS partners Rita Lowe, Guy Pendell and Bob Palmer will lead the firm’s UK operations for banking, disputes and energy respectively.
Other practice areas will have two heads in the UK, with Nabarro partner Jonathan Warne leading the litigation practice alongside Olswang’s Catherine Taylor. CMS Cologne partner Christopher Jordan will head up the global group.
Nabarro partner John Cumpson will lead the real estate practice in the UK alongside CMS partner Mark Heighton.
Carvalho is the only management member from either CMS, Nabarro or Olswang to gain one of the ten global practice area roles. Carvalho will share the global co-head of real estate role alongside CMS partners Dirk Rodewoldt and Arnout Scholten.
Combined, the Nabarro and Olswang appointments make up almost half of the eleven UK posts and just over a quarter of the total 21 roles filled.
The new firm will also appoint a total of 11 partners to sector group roles, with some overlap with practice area heads.
Of these, four are from Nabarro and Olswang. These are Nabarro partner Kirsty Duane in infrastructure alongside CMS partner Paul Smith; Nabarro partner Warren Taylor alongside CMS partners Sarah Hanson and Olswang partner Robert Stephen in life sciences and healthcare; and Olswang partner Clive Gringras leading the technology, media and telecommunications sector.
CMS senior partner Penelope Warne will continue to lead the energy sector group. Both her and Carvalho are the only two of the seven-strong transition team to secure practice or sector head roles.
Olswang CEO Paul Stevens, Olswang senior partner Mark Deveraux, Nabarro managing partner Andrew Inkester, CMS UK managing partner Stephen Millar, and CMS executive partner Duncan Weston will instead focus on the two-year transition plan for the firm, a spokesperson told The Lawyer.
