Eighteen months on from its City launch, Boies, Schiller & Flexner has hired its third partner with Kenneth Beale joining the disputes shop from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr’s arbitration group.
The hire comes as the firm looks to bulk up its offering within its three core practice lines: investigations, litigation and international arbitration. Beale starts in his new role on July 6 and will be joined by three associates from various firms including White & Case.
Beale, who was of counsel at WilmerHale with particular experience of disputes involving Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia, was understood to have been on track to partnership at the firm but decided to leave to join fellow arbitration partner Wendy Miles, who also left last September to boost Boies Schiller’s City arbitration offering.
The arrival of the team will take office headcount to 15, which counts three partners and 12 associates including two secondees. The firm has also taken out extra office space in Old Broad Street’s Tower 42 that will house up to 25 heads.
After more than a decade at WilmerHale’s London and Washington DC offices, Beale returns to Boies Schiller where he spent time as a summer associate in the early 2000s under co-founder and managing partner Jonathan Schiller.
Beale has experience of advising in criminal and corporate investigations, cross-border disputes and international arbitrations across the oil and gas, manufacturing, financial services, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and defence sectors.
Boies Schiller’s London head, Natasha Harrison, said: ‘Ken is a valuable and important addition to our growing London office. His expertise in investigations and international arbitration will add further resource and depth to the office as we continue to build the international disputes practice.’
Founded in 1997, Boies Schiller launched its first office outside of the States in London in the summer of 2013 with the hire of former Bingham McCutchen star partner Harrison. The launch came in a bid to service the firm’s major clients including Barclays, which Boies Schiller represented over Libor related issues.
Recent work out of the London office has seen Boies Schiller advising the Class A1 Fixed Noteholders of Canary Wharf in a dispute to a spens payment, which is listed for trial in the final week of July; and obtaining a judgment from the High Court in April in favour of a group of Spanish conglomerate FCC’s debt holders.
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk