Pinsent Masons and Addleshaw Goddard have made significant office openings in Europe, while a host of other firms have expanded their benches worldwide this past week.
Pinsents has unveiled plans to launch its first office in the Netherlands, hiring partner Wouter Seinen from Baker McKenzie to lead its new Amsterdam base. Seinen specialises in data protection, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence counsel across the technology market, which will be the main focus of the new office.
Richard Foley, senior partner at Pinsents, said: ‘With a quarter of our top 250 clients operating in the Netherlands this is an important strategic market and I’m delighted to be starting the process by which we will quickly build out a meaningful capability in Amsterdam.’
Addleshaws, meanwhile, has doubled the size of its operations on continental Europe through a new a Paris office – its first in France. The launch is supported by the hire of 22 lawyers from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) and K&L Gates, including three partners. The Paris outpost will offer capabilities spanning corporate, commercial, real estate and dispute resolution.
Of the arriving partners, corporate specialist Rémy Blain will lead the new office, having been managing partner of BCLP’s Paris office. Among those joining him are corporate colleague Antoine Martin and real estate partner Edouard Vitry from K&L Gates.
Meanwhile, Simmons & Simmons has deepened its German real estate expertise after yet another European partner departure from BCLP. Boris Strauch will be based in Simmons’ Frankfurt office and will predominantly advise on real estate transactional work.
Osborne Clarke has likewise strengthened its European credentials after hiring two partners on the continent. Nassim Ghalimi arrives as a partner from Veil Jourde in Paris to head the restructuring and insolvency team there, while Swedish technology, media and communications partner Mikael Nelson has joined OC’s Stockholm office from specialist TMC boutique, Time Danowsky.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the firm has hired two technology and life sciences-focused partners to its Reading office, Rob Hayes and Justin Starling, from Penningtons Manches Cooper. OC’s international chief executive Simon Beswick commented: ‘Many of our clients are facing huge transformational change over the next five years, and we want to ensure our people are supporting them on the ground and in the markets that are the most important for their businesses as they evolve.’
Elsewhere in the UK, Scottish-based Shepherd and Wedderburn has made a substantial private client investment, hiring a 20-strong team from Dentons to create one of Scotland’s largest private client practices. The arriving team, based primarily in Glasgow and led by partners Eleanor Kerr and Alexis Graham, will increase the size of Shepherd and Wedderburn’s private client team to 46.
Kerr described the marriage of ‘two well-established, heavyweight private client practices’ as a ‘game-changer’. She added that it created ‘new and exciting opportunities for our clients and for us.’
And, in a major move for the London high-net-worth advisory market, Forsters has hired partners Robert Barham and Charles Miéville from Cripps Pemberton Greenish. Their arrival will create a six-partner, 30-lawyer high-net-worth residential property team, which Forsters claims will be the largest in London. Lucy Barber, partner and head of residential property at Forsters, asserted that the move ‘puts us firmly in the top tier of law firms advising clients on high-value transactions’.
Squire Patton Boggs has added a corporate partner to its London bench, in the form of Fergus Gallagher. Gallagher joins from McDermott Will & Emery and will advise on domestic and cross-border M&A, joint ventures and IPOs.
Also in London, partners Iain Morpeth and Michael Wistow have departed Ropes & Gray and White & Case respectively to set up a new private equity practice at McCarthy Denning. With a flat operational structure and lack of overheads similar to Keystone Law’s model, McCarthy Denning is a growing full-service firm founded in 2013.
Cooley has also made a key hire in the City, bringing in Guadalupe Sampedro as a data protection partner from Bird & Bird. Sampedro has in-house experience, after a spell as PayPal EU’s data protection officer and privacy director for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
RPC has continued to expand with its third lateral partner hire in as many weeks, with corporate partner Connor Cahalane joining from Latham & Watkins. Karen Hendy, head of corporate at RPC, said: ‘Many of our clients are listed, looking to raise funds, or otherwise involved in public markets activities, and being able to support them on transactions and in navigating through the various regulatory regimes is key. Connor has considerable experience in acting for public companies across the board.’
Despite shedding partners in Europe, BCLP has bolstered its Hong Kong presence via the appointment of partner Wayne Ma, who arrives from DLA Piper. Ma is a real estate specialist with a transactional slant, and marks the tenth lateral hire to join the firm’s global real estate practice in the past year.
Kennedys has made a series of hires across the US, including one partner in Miami and two in Philadelphia. Insurance partner Eric Hiller joins the firm in Miami from Clyde & Co, with experience advising US and international insurers on coverage matters. Sean Mahoney and Joshua Mooney both join as partners from local Philadelphia firm White and Williams. Mahoney is an experienced insurance litigator while Mooney is a data privacy specialist.
Finally, in addition to its Netherlands launch, Pinsents has added an infrastructure partner to its Perth office in Australia. David Ulbrick joins from Australian firm HWL Ebsworth and will focus on international and domestic construction disputes.
