If you are a senior litigator looking for a lucrative move, it does not hurt to be a white-collar specialist. As Edwards Gibson founder Scott Gibson observes: ‘It’s like private equity, where individuals can always move. In the white-collar world, people’s reputations can be enough to attract interest.’
Such moves include last September, when King & Spalding hired Gareth Rees QC from the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). Rees has pedigree, having acted as the FRC’s executive director of enforcement and executive counsel, leading prosecutions since 2012. But such moves are becoming common. Serious Fraud Office (SFO) bribery and corruption co-head Ben Morgan joined Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer last year after a five-year stint at the agency (an ultra-rare London partner hire for the firm). Stewarts last summer hired Dechert fraud veteran David Hughes and in the autumn Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher recruited SFO veteran Sacha Harber-Kelly, a key figure in crafting the agency’s deferred prosecution agreement with Rolls-Royce. Since January, King & Spalding hired Berwin Leighton Paisner head of corporate crime and investigations, Aaron Stephens, while Ropes & Gray in February secured Clifford Chance partner Judith Seddon to lead its seven-strong team in London, alongside US-trained Amanda Raad.
There has, of course, been talent moving outside crime, with Watson Farley & Williams rounding off 2017 with the hire of Ropes partner Thomas Ross, a general litigator with a finance slant to his practice. In February, White & Case, the first US firm to take City disputes seriously, shipped in Weil, Gotshal & Manges’ co-head of international disputes, Hannah Field-Lowes.
Also noteworthy was Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton’s recruitment of James Norris-Jones from Herbert Smith Freehills, one of the City firm’s point men on the mammoth Royal Bank of Scotland rights issue dispute. Cleary – justly renowned as a super-picky recruiter – now has six litigation partners in the City. And with proper intellectual property (IP) hands perennially on the wish list of most major firms, Ashurst recruited David Wilkinson from Clyde & Co in February, the same month as the upwardly-mobile Fieldfisher reinforced an already muscular team with John Linneker, Dentons’ former UK IP head.
Yet we return to white-collar for the prospective hire that litigators have been talking about for months: who will sign current SFO director David Green QC, whose term ends in April?
Such glamour transfers in fraud/investigations somewhat mask what is currently a solid rather than spectacular environment for litigation (and litigators). The US firms that have invested in UK litigation have fast-maturing teams, while the boutiques, a huge force in the industry in recent years, are similarly established. With the wave of post-Lehman and Russia/CIS-related disputes fast receding, teams are on the hunt for the next wave of marquee cases. As Gibson comments: ‘I haven’t seen anything that makes me think “bloody hell!”.’
Citing the transitional phase in the disputes scene, Stewarts veteran Clive Zietman notes that external funding has become more important to in-house teams wrestling with costs, stating: ‘Where the funders are funding, there’s litigation.’ He concludes: ‘The big firms are very tied up on the regulatory stuff, but the specialist firms are busy. Middle-market firms are less busy.’
A perfect time then to go shopping. Or turn to crime.