Allen & Overy (A&O) has made its fifth major lateral hire this month, taking on Simmons & Simmons head of IP Marc Döring in a boost to its patent litigation offering.
He joins former Simmons IP partner Marjan Noor, with the firm announcing her arrival in June. A&O also hired Simmons partner Tom Butcher to head up the firm’s Middle East TMT and IP practice in March.
Döring’s experience is focused on intellectual property disputes, primarily patent litigation in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, hi-tech and chemical industries. He joins the firm’s 15 partner strong global IP group.
A&O IP partner Nicola Dagg described Döring as ‘a renowned and formidable IP litigator who brings the skills and experience that will complement our existing team and help us to exploit new opportunities down the line.’
Global head of litigation Tim House added: ‘Our IP offering is unique among the big international firms with top tier IP partners in key European jurisdictions and, with this move, an unrivalled galaxy of stars in the UK. Unlike others in our peer-group, we have consistently prioritised IP as a strategic growth area for the litigation practice and Marc adds an additional dimension to our already strong offering.’
Döring joins four US lateral hires the firm announced last week making a significant boost to its finance practice. A&O took on three partners from White & Case, one from Proskauer Rose, as well as an associate from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy as partner. The group of five join the Magic Circle firm’s New York team.
Finance partner Scott Zemser, joining from White & Case, will head up the team, with fellow White & Case partners Alan Rockwell and Judah Frogel joining him. Rajani Gupta has also moved to the firm from Proskauer Rose with Todd Koretzky rising to partner in his move from Milbank.
The new team’s clients include Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.
The five partner US finance hire will soften the blow of the loss of one of London’s most high-profile banking lawyers to US firm Latham & Watkins. Legal Business revealed this month Stephen Kensell had made the move following a failed bid for senior partner earlier this year.
In June new leaders Wim Dejonghe and Andrew Ballheimer indicated their goal is to ‘keep growing in a quality way’ with further growth expected across the US, China and Europe.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
