Baker & McKenzie has hired 10 lawyers including five partners to its Zurich office, boosting the firm’s presence in the Swiss financial centre to 130 lawyers.
The team of five partners and five associates moves from leading Swiss firm Froriep, which has 80 lawyers and offices in Zurich, Geneva, Zug, Madrid and London.
The new partners include corporate and M&A partners Beat Barthold and Pascal Richard, banking and finance partner Ansgar Schott, antitrust partner Boris Wenger and intellectual property and IT partner Alessandro Celli.
Corporate partner Barthold is recommended in The Legal 500 as a leading Zurich lawyer and is described as ‘a great adviser with excellent business understanding’.
Baker & McKenzie executive committee member Erik Scheer said: ‘Many of our global clients have major business in Switzerland and this team’s global outlook commitment to excellence and international client base is a perfect fit.’
The firm also recently hired Christoph Wild, a healthcare and sciences lawyer, who joined the Zurich office as a partner from Wenger Plattner at the end of September.
Baker & McKenzie has reinforced its presence in its major financial centres following a strong financial year for the firm. The firm added KPMG tax partner Steve Labrum into its London office last month. Labrum spent two years at the Big Four accountant, and had previously worked at EY, Deloitte and PwC.
In New York, Baker & McKenzie hired corporate partner Steven Canner from Kaye Scholer this summer as well as Jan Joosten from Hughes, Hubbard and Leed. It also added bankruptcy partner Debra Dandeneau from Weil Gotshal & Manges, who will serve as co-head of the firm’s global restructuring and insolvency group, and Peter Goodman from McKool Smith.
The firm recently recorded a comeback year for financial growth with results that make it the largest law firm in the world by turnover after an 8% increase to $2.62bn for 2015/16.
matthew.field@legalease.co.uk
Read more on the Swiss market in: ‘Red dragon, white cross – Can Chinese money kickstart Swiss markets’
