In-house: high-profile Pfizer GC steps down while former Dewey chair appointed as a UAE legal adviser

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She has built a reputation as one of the most powerful and influential lawyers in the world but Pfizer has confirmed that its high-profile general counsel and executive leadership member Amy Schulman is to leave the pharma giant just weeks before the in-house lawyer was due to take up a new post.

Schulman had joined Pfizer in 2008 from her position as co-head of mass tort and class actions at DLA Piper. The star litigator, who was reportedly responsible for a $60m book of business, was an equally high-profile general counsel going on to pioneer the Pfizer Legal Alliance, a radical attempt to usher in annually fixed fees for advisers that entirely ditched the billable hour.

The move comes despite Schulman in July being named as head of vaccines, oncology and consumer healthcare business, a post she was expected to assume in the New Year.

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In-house revolving doors: Senior hires for Co-op, Powa Technologies and Autoliv as BMA loses group legal director

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A series of senior in-house moves and hires has this week seen The Co-operative Group appoint Lloyds Banking Group company secretary Claire Davies as group secretary, Yahoo’s senior legal director Manu Kanwar move to Powa Technologies, Swedish automotive safety systems manufacturer Autoliv appoint Andrew Nellis as interim general counsel and the British Medical Association (BMA) lose its legal director Jonathan Waters. Continue reading “In-house revolving doors: Senior hires for Co-op, Powa Technologies and Autoliv as BMA loses group legal director”

In-house hires – TSB appoints Post Office GC as legal head as Mercedes-Benz fills top spot

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Following its split from Lloyds, TSB Bank has announced the appointment of former Post Office general counsel (GC) Susan Crichton as its new legal chief, leading the newly separated bank’s legal function in the New Year as it moves towards an initial public offering (IPO).

Crichton played a key role in the Post Office’s separation from Royal Mail, before which she was legal, governance and risk director at Skandia International between 2008 and 2010, and GC at General Electric (GE) Money and Consumer Finance between 1999 and 2008. Continue reading “In-house hires – TSB appoints Post Office GC as legal head as Mercedes-Benz fills top spot”

In-house: Transocean finds replacement general counsel after year-long search

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Swiss-based offshore drilling contractor Transocean has appointed a new general counsel (GC) and senior vice president over a year after former legal chief Nick Deeming left the role.

Former GC, vice president legal affairs and secretary of Swedish-American automotive safety systems manufacturer Autoliv, Lars Sjöbring, will join Transocean next year when his current notice period expires.

Prior to joining Autoliv in 2007, Sjöbring – who has master of law degrees in Sweden, the Netherlands and the US – held the role of senior legal counsel and subsequently director legal, M&A at Nokia since joining the telecoms group in 2003.

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The City elite is ready to try something new – are clients keeping up?

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Eighteen months ago I met the general counsel (GC) of a FTSE 250 company to listen to his plans to parcel up parts of his deals, based on complexity, and hand each chunk to a different panel adviser based on skillset, capability and cost.

Until very recently, this level of micro-management – and the prospect that law firms would no longer be handed a deal lock, stock and barrel – was not going down well. Not long after meeting this GC, I sat between two well-known managing partners at a dinner and listened to them assert matter-of-factly that this sort of tinkering round the edges would never become mainstream.

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Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi launches first EMEA panel

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Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) has announced its first-ever panel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), with eight leading City firms appointed after a process described as ‘extremely competitive’.

Allen & Overy (A&O), Linklaters and Ashurst won places, alongside Berwin Leighton Paisner, Hogan Lovells, Norton Rose Fulbright, Slaughter and May, and White & Case.

BTMU has also created a separate, confidential transactional panel on which the preferred firms have won a place, alongside ‘other market-leading firms in a range of different practice areas’, which the bank would not disclose.

Born of a merger between the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and UFJ Bank in 2006, BTMU approached a number of firms to apply for the panel, with an initial deadline of September.

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Supply and demands – will the cheap talent run out for GCs in 2014?

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With rising demand for in-house counsel, bluechip legal teams are hunting for talented lawyers. Legal Business surveys the recruitment outlook.

‘I do get asked “Why are you outsourcing work when you’ve got such a large team?”,’ says David Symonds, general counsel (GC) for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Tyco International.‘Of course, the reality is, when you look at benchmarking data, my team is actually two thirds of the size that it should be.’

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Profile: Chris Newby, AIG

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As AIG’s general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Chris Newby appears extraordinarily calm for a man in charge of a burgeoning portion of a $65.7bn business, that was described as on the brink of failure a couple of years ago.

Now, happily labelled as the ‘largest turnaround in corporate history’, things could easily have turned out very differently at New York-headquartered AIG. Newby’s apparent poise masks the prolonged period of extreme uncertainty and hard work that it took to get there. It’s unsurprising that he is still cautious, commenting: ‘There is no doubt there are signs of economic recovery, but we inevitably still face challenges.’

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Former Times head of legal Alastair Brett to face hearing for misleading court

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The former head of legal for The Times newspaper, Alastair Brett, will appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) tomorrow (5 December) to face allegations that he allowed a court to be misled over the unveiling of anonymous Nightjack police blogger and Lancashire detective, Richard Horton in 2009.

Last year the Leveson inquiry into press standards heard from former Macfarlanes litigator Brett that, during an injunction brought by Horton to prevent The Times from revealing his identity, high court judge Mr Justice Eady was not informed that Horton’s identity had originally been discovered as a result of hacking his email. Continue reading “Former Times head of legal Alastair Brett to face hearing for misleading court”

Still in the headlines – Embattled Co-op appoints new GC for bank amid group shake-up

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The Co-operative Bank (Co-op) has announced the appointment of former interim general counsel (GC) of Coventry Building Society Brona McKeown as legal chief and company secretary shortly after current GC Alistair Asher moves to head the legal function across the Co-operative Group.

Prior to Coventry Building Society, McKeown held a variety of roles at Barclays, culminating in global GC of Barclays Corporate. McKeown, who trained as a lawyer at CMS Cameron McKenna, joins the Manchester-based bank on 2 December.

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