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  • April 9, 2008 |

    Ex-Coudert partners face $12m bill to settle bankruptcy

    Former partners at Coudert Brothers will need to pay about $12m (£6.02m) to help liquidate the defunct law firm according to a plan produced by an examiner in the firm's bankruptcy, writes the National Law Journal. In a report issued on 27 March, court-appointed examiner Harrison Goldin determined that former Coudert partners should pay $11.8m (£5.92m) in exchange for liability release from creditors and the firm itself, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a mass exodus of partners.

    1 minute read

  • April 3, 2008 |

    Kurer under siege: that's what you're really up against

    Citing the nomination of UBS general counsel Peter Kurer as chairman, Legal Week noted that the credit crunch would push lawyers centre stage to help stabilise…

    1 minute read

  • April 2, 2008 |

    Bryan Cave hires four as Appleby promotes seven

    Bryan Cave has boosted its US and Asian practices with the hire of four new partners. Corproate finance specialist David Beauchamp joins the firm as a partner in Phoenix from Gammage & Burnham, while litigation partner Joshua Sable joins from Foley & Lardner in the Santa Monica office. Intellectual property (IP) lawyer Edward Hejlek, meanwhile, joins Bryan Cave's St Louis office from local IP outfit Senniger Powers. He also becomes a partner.

    1 minute read

  • April 1, 2008 |

    Gibson Dunn bags Bakers man in Munich

    Gibson Dunn & Crutcher has hired an new employment partner from Baker & McKenzie in a boost for the US firm's European network. Mark Zimmer joined the firm's Munich office from Bakers today (1 April). He advises on employment law in restructurings, M&A, collective dismissals and union negotiations.

    1 minute read

  • March 26, 2008 |

    Double hire gives SJ Berwin European boost

    SJ Berwin has added to its European offering with partner hires in France and Italy. Antitrust specialist Davide Balboni joins as a partner in the City firm's Milan office, while insolvency lawyer Nicolas Theys joins the partnership in Paris.

    1 minute read

  • March 20, 2008 |

    Norton Rose a winner as Standard Chartered names new UK panel

    Standard Chartered Bank has unveiled its new panel of UK advisers, with Norton Rose making its debut on the roster and City rivals SJ Berwin and Bird & Bird among those to miss out. The new line-up, which follows the first review of the bank's domestic panel in four years, sees City firms Denton Wilde Sapte and Herbert Smith retained alongside southwest outfit Burges Salmon and national giants Addleshaw Goddard and DLA Piper.

    1 minute read

  • March 20, 2008 |

    Bakers boosts tax with principal economist hire

    Baker & McKenzie has boosted its tax practice with the hire of Richard Boykin as a principal economist. Boykin, who is currently at KPMG practising transfer pricing economics, will help to grow Baker's cross-border transfer pricing capabilities. He will be based in the London office until mid-2009 before moving to New York.

    1 minute read

  • March 19, 2008 |

    Corporate Counsel: There can be only one

    Little more than a year ago, Paul Smith, a partner at Eversheds, received a call from the irate head of a European law firm. Up until then, the European firm had regularly worked for Tyco International. Now, the caller informed Smith, Eversheds had just taken 37% of his Tyco business. What, he asked, did the Eversheds partner intend to do about it? As he recounts the story, Smith rolls his eyes at yet another example of a law firm failing to grasp some basic fundamentals of client service in the modern world. But the caller did have reason for concern. Smith had just led Eversheds' successful pitch to become Tyco's adviser of choice for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. At a stroke, the US security and fire business slashed its legal advisers for day-to-day matters in the region, such as commercial contracts and intellectual property, from a high point of 250 to just one. In early 2007, Tyco handed Eversheds a two-year mandate estimated to be worth more than £10m in total.

    1 minute read

  • March 19, 2008 |

    Russell Lewin: A call to arms for diversity

    We live in a world of luminous diversity and there are few places where humanity's rich variety is more apparent than in our capital city: a socioeconomic melting pot and haven for immigrants - whether from Belfast, Barbados or Bangalore - for over a thousand years. And yet, with certain elements of society remaining significantly under-represented, an examination of a cross-section of 'the City' today would not demonstrate the true extent of this diversity. While the solicitors' profession has for some time acknowledged the importance of addressing this issue, the fact remains that, in 2008, it remains disproportionately white and middle class, if no longer quite so male.

    1 minute read

  • March 5, 2008 |

    Bakers adds to capital markets with Citi hire

    Baker & McKenzie has hired a capital markets partner from Citigroup. Peter Castellon will join the firm in London from his position as director and counsel in Citigroup's markets and banking division. Before working with Citigroup for the last seven years, Castellon worked in the securities practices of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London and Morgan Lewis & Bockius in New York.

    1 minute read