The Bar Council yesterday (16 April) launched the first ever Bar nursery at Smithfield House, in a bid to support working parents.
The central London childcare facility is the result of a campaign by the Bar Nursery Association, which was established in 2007 with the aim of promoting a family-friendly working environment and to retain female professionals after having children.
Clyde & Co yesterday (16 April) confirmed it is to open a Madrid office following the appointment of a four-partner insurance team from DAC Beachcroft’s local office.
The team of nine lawyers, including insurance partners Ignacio Figuerol, Ricardo Garrido, Pablo Guillen and Miguel Relano, have resigned to establish the office for Clyde & Co, extending the firm’s international footprint to 18 locations across Europe, America and Asia.
Addleshaw Goddard real estate partner Paula Dillon is to join newly merged Bond Dickinson in its first post-merger hire.
Dillon, who was recruited by legacy Dickinson Dees before its merger with Bond Pearce, will join the Leeds office next month. The merger goes live on 1 May.
Nabarro has promoted eight lawyers to its partnership, with the firm’s City office awarded the lion’s share.
The promotions, effective from 1 May 2013, are split across the construction, real estate, tax, corporate and disputes practices.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has scored a significant coup in hiring respected Shearman & Sterling partner and head of global project development and finance Tim Pick to boost its energy and natural resources capability.
Pick, described as ‘outstanding in all respects’ in the latest edition of The Legal 500, will join as a finance partner in London and will focus on advising clients in the energy and natural resources sector in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
CMS Cameron McKenna will reform its partnership remuneration model on 1 May, enabling salaried partners to become equity partners quicker but increasing management scrutiny on performance.
After 18 months of deliberation, the firm voted in favour of discontinuing its salaried partner level recently, achieving the required 80% majority needed to push the reforms through.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has recruited former acting head of the criminal division at the Department of Justice (DoJ) to bolster its US white-collar practice.
Matthew Friedrich joins from US litigation firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, where he had a partner since 2009. Prior to this, he spent 13 years at the DoJ in various leadership roles including the assistant attorney general for the criminal department, where he managed a team of 740 individuals on fraud, intellectual property and cross-border transactions by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Taylor Wessing (TW) has secured a prominent lateral hire to its intellectual property team, recruiting the head of Harbottle & Lewis’ IP Group Mark Owen.
The arrival of Owen will add further strength to TW’s leading soft IP practice. The former Clifford Chance lawyer has advised significant media and entertainment clients on copyright, designs, trade mark, database rights and data privacy issues for the last 25 years.
‘Mark’s focus on new media clients and digital convergence issues aligns perfectly with Taylor Wessing’s TMT offering, while his excellent contacts and experience in Silicon Valley will be a real asset to our international practice,’ said Tim Eyles, Taylor Wessing’s UK managing partner.
Pinsent Masons is to cut 13 fee-earners from its employment practice in a third round of redundancies since the firm’s merger with McGrigors last May.
The firm was keen to emphasise that this latest round of cuts was unrelated to the 62 support roles lost last year but instead come as a result of department restructuring.
In a statement, Pinsents said: ‘As a firm we continue to grow and have made a number of strategic investments over the past 12 months in those sectors and markets where we see most potential for growth.
South East stalwart Thomas Eggar is to absorb City boutique Pritchard Englefield as the run of consolidation within the UK top 100 continues.
The merger, which will go live on 1 May and roughly doubles the size of Thomas Eggar’s City arm, will see the 58-partner firm increase its revenue from £36m to £42m. The duo will unite under the Thomas Eggar brand.
The acquisition of the 30-lawyer City practice has been billed as substantially bolstering Thomas Eggar’s profile as an institutional adviser.
