Latest exits add to departures of two partners from City headquarters
The expiry of Clyde & Co’s three-year post-merger partner lock-in appeared to pass almost unnoticed last April, but the UK top-20 firm has lost two London partners in recent months as its established US practice was hit in January with a 15-strong team walk out, which included three litigation partners.
London commercial partner Alan Meneghetti, who joined the firm five years ago as a legal director and became an aviation partner in 2010, left the firm on 31 December 2013 for Locke Lord’s corporate practice in London. Meneghetti’s experience within the aviation and aerospace sector includes handling regulatory issues surrounding procurement, data protection and privacy, intellectual property, information technology and the drafting and negotiating of commercial agreements.
Separately, project finance partner James Varanese, who joined Clydes as a partner in 2003, left the firm at the end of October last year to join oil and gas company Siren E&P as its executive chairman, although his exit has previously been unreported.
In the US, a 15-strong litigation team left Clyde & Co’s New Jersey office on 1 January to boost the disputes offering of the Newark office of Virginia-founded firm LeClairRyan. These include litigation partners Jeffrey O’Hara, Matthew Bauer, Bryan Couch and of counsel Matthew Schultz, who joins LeClairRyan as a partner.
Also joining the firm are six associates, one law clerk, two paralegals and two staff members, all having joined Clydes from New Jersey-based firm Connell Foley.
The new team will significantly boost LeClairRyan’s commercial and corporate litigation, professional liability and transportation practices.
The team has experience in franchise litigation, product liability and toxic tort claims with a special focus on defending casualty cases involving large exposure and catastrophic events.
LeClairRyan’s litigation chair Erik Gustafson said: ‘There is a longstanding personal and working relationship between our firm and this team. As such, there is a great deal of mutual respect for the calibre of our trial practices.’