Clyde & Co has continued its US expansion, launching in Chicago and Washington DC. The firm has taken on a team of ten partners from Global 100 firm Troutman Sanders who will launch the two new offices.
Troutman’s Chicago office managing partner Eileen King Bower will head up Clyde & Co’s new office in the city alongside partner Clint Cameron who will take up the role of co-head.
King Bower, who has a general liability and professional liability practice, and Cameron, who focuses on mass tort, environmental and product liability claims, are joined by two other partners in the office – insurance litigation partners David Cutter and James Sanders.
Clyde & Co also picked up a six partner team from Troutman specialising in insurance litigation to open its Washington DC office with Jack Gerstein, David Gische, Leslie Ahari, Meredith Werner, Patrick Hofer and Gaby Richeimer all set to join.
Clyde & Co senior partner Simon Konsta told Legal Business: ‘Chicago is a city that we have been looking at for a little while. We have a number of clients who are headquartered in Chicago and there’s also a substantial insurance operation there too.’
‘Washington, first and foremost [was for] the people. They fit very neatly with our broader US capability and the expansion that we wanted. Washington again is plainly a significant city and one which we hope there is opportunity for growth within and beyond insurance.’
Konsta (pictured) added the firm has also identified growth opportunities in Southern California and in the firm’s energy offering across the US.
It is the first US opening the firm has made made following the appointment of its new head of the Americas. Former senior partner James Burns’ resigned at the end of his first three year term late last year to head up Clyde & Co’s Americas offering.
In December Konsta said he expects Clydes will be close to being a $100m business in the US at the end of this financial year. He added he would ‘like to at least match the 20% growth we achieved in the US last year’. Last year the US brought in 12% of the firm’s turnover, or around £53.7m.
The two new offices follow Clydes’ expansion into Miami in May last year with the acquisition of five partner strong litigation firm Thornton Davis Fein. TDF’s 40 lawyers and staff, who are specialists in product liability and construction as well as Clyde & Co’s traditional aviation, insurance and marine sector focuses – were joined by Clyde & Co partner Ricardo Lewandowski who relocated to the new office from London to launch a Latin American liaison service in Miami.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
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