Allen & Overy‘s (A&O) global head of dispute resolution Tim House is to become senior partner of the US and Latin America as the Magic Circle firm continues its heavy push into the region.
House will replace current managing partner David Krischer, who will remain at the firm, on 1 May and will be based in A&O’s New York office. It was announced in November the firm’s US senior partner, Kevin O’Shea, would leave for Milbank Tweed Haley & McCloy. Both Dave Lewis and Barbara Stettner will will head up the New York office and the Washington DC office respectively.
House will continue as the firm’s global head of dispute resolution, which he was appointed to two-and-a half years ago, for the rest of his four year term.
House has experience litigating and resolving complex disputes or managing investigations with much of his work being multi-jurisdictional. He will continue to do client work sourced from UK contacts but will not be a US lawyer.
A well-respected name at A&O, House ran for the role of senior partner in the firm’s leadership election last year. He was beaten to the post by longstanding former managing partner Wim Dejonghe, who now stands alongside managing partner Andrew Ballheimer. Former banking co-head Stephen Kensell, who left last year for Latham & Watkins, and Paris-based competition partner Michel Struys also ran for the post.
House told Legal Business: ‘I see my role as a combination of building the business and coordinating among all the partners and amongst all the practice groups in the way we present ourselves to clients and the way we serve their needs in the US and Latin America.
‘I am going to be continuing to do client work. Monthly I will be back in the UK, partly to serve UK-based clients, but also partly in my continuing role as global litigation head because the UK is a large part of that practice.’
House’s move to the firm’s US offices follows the hire of investigations and litigation partners Gregory Mocek and Anthony Mansfield from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in January and Eugene Ingoglia from Morvillo in February. Mocek and Mansfield join A&O’s Washington DC office while Ingoglia will be based in New York.
The firm’s litigation group was bulked up with the hire of a four partner London IP litigation team from Simmons & Simmons last year. A&O confirmed Mark Heaney and David Stone would join the firm in September, following the hire of Marc Döring and Marjan Noor earlier that year.
A&O has aggressively grown its finance practice in the US with a thre- partner Paul Hastings team making up its sixth lateral in the country since January. The lockstep-breaking hire includes former Paul Hastings leveraged finance head Bill Schwitter who will join A&O’s New York office and will become the firm’s global co-head of high-yield. He joins alongside high-yield partner Michael Chernick and capital markets partner Jeffrey Pellegrino.
The team was not the first the Magic Circle firm had broken its lockstep for in the past 12 months. A&O hired a four partner team in New York in July last year. The team is led by global co-head of leveraged finance Scott Zemser, who joined with Alan Rockwell and Judah Frogel from White & Case. Rajani Gupta came to A&O from Proskauer Rose, while associate Todd Koretzky joined from Milbank. Koretzky was made up to partner in the move.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
