Shearman’s rainmaker leaves for Skadden

Shearman & Sterling’s loss is Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom’s gain after Stephan Hutter, Germany’s pre-eminent capital markets specialist, swapped one US firm for another in February.

Hutter joined Skadden’s Frankfurt office along with fellow partner Katja Kaulamo, gifting the firm the German capital markets capability it has sought for so long.

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Cleary hires former Stephenson Harwood chief executive

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has hired former Stephenson Harwood chief executive and litigation heavyweight Sunil Gadhia in its London office, marking a growing trend of US firms bulking up City disputes practices.

Gadhia is set to join Cleary’s London outpost this year after 15 years as a partner at Stephenson Harwood, of which he spent six as chief executive.

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Tip Top

Intellectual property is the trophy practice for many firms in 2011. LB examines the current popularity of IP at law firms and the story behind a spate of lateral hires in the past year

Whisper it, but for the global legal community the demise of Howrey brought two pieces of good news. First, its collapse meant a credible competitor had fallen away in the areas of intellectual property (IP), litigation and antitrust. The other bonus was that a number of excellent IP specialists were suddenly on the market. While Howrey’s decline has been well documented, the speed with which other firms scooped up many of the survivors is worth noting.

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Talent scouts

With the City’s law firms bogged down by plummeting profits and disaffected partners, the Americans have seized the chance to hire some serious big cheeses. Here, LB names our top ten laterals of the year

If you thought one of the most turbulent 12-month periods that the legal market has ever seen would result in partners hunkering down and getting on with whatever work they could find, then think again. Since our last Global London survey a year ago, no fewer than 64 partners have opted to up sticks and join US firms on this side of the Atlantic, and not all of them were moving because they were pushed.

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