The Global Legal Post

LawtechUK 'created a sense of urgency' around tech adoption in legal sector, impact assessment says

The government-backed LawtechUK initiative launched in collaboration with tech industry body Tech Nation has created a ‘sense of urgency’ around the development of legaltech, according to an external impact report. The assessment, conducted by microeconomics consultancy Frontier Economics, focused on how LawtechUK has delivered against its grant objectives and the wider impacts of its different initiatives. The programme's high level of engagement had much to do with its neutrality as a governme...

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Skadden adds DLA Piper energy co-chair in Houston

Skadden Arps Meagher & Flom has hired DLA Piper’s US energy practice co-chair as a partner in Houston. Drew Baldinger joins the New York firm after six years at DLA Piper, where he also worked as vice chair of the firm’s M&A practice. He was appointed as vice-chair in early 2020 as part of a wider shake-up of DLA Piper’s US corporate sub-groups.Baldinger advises clients on offtake, gas supply, transportation and other key contracts in the oil and gas sector. He also advises project developers, p...

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Linklaters and Duane Morris advise on India's largest-ever IPO

Linklaters and Duane Morris have teamed up with two leading local firms to advise Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on its $2.7bn IPO, India's largest-ever listing. Linklaters and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) advised the lead managers on the deal while Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) and Duane Morris teamed up to advise LIC. The listing surpassed the previous record, clocked up by mobile payment and financial services company Paytm, which went public in a $2.4bn offering last year....

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Dentons expands in Dublin with triple partner hire

Dentons has hired a trio of lawyers from Allen & Overy, Shearman & Sterling and Gilbert + Tobin for its Dublin office. The additions of energy and projects lawyer Colm Ó hUiginn and corporate M&A duo David McGuiness and Michael McDonald bring Dentons’ partner count in Dublin up to 10. The office, which opened in 2020, now boasts 26 lawyers in total. All three have been promoted to partner upon moving to Dentons. Ó hUiginn, who joins from Shearman & Sterling’s London office, was counsel at his fo...

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Willkie launches capital markets practice in Frankfurt with double partner hire from McDermott

New York firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher has hired two lawyers from McDermott Will & Emery to launch a capital markets practice in Frankfurt. Simon Weiss and Joseph Marx join Willkie’s sole German office as partners as the firm looks to deepen its ties in the German legal market, which has been flush with transactional activity in recent years. The additions bring Willkie’s lawyer headcount in Germany to 54 according to the firm’s website. Its German partner headcount now sits at 12. Weiss focuses...

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Winston & Strawn and Kirkland & Ellis both target ‘dynamic’ Miami with new offices

Winston & Strawn and Kirkland & Ellis are both opening in Miami – Winston after hiring six partners from rival firms, Kirkland through the relocation of a team of senior lawyers from Chicago and New York.Both Chicago-based firms cited Miami’s status as a growing business centre as the rationale for their moves – the city has been variously dubbed the Wall Street of the South and the New Silicon Valley due to the number of banks and technology companies setting up shop there.Winston’s partner lat...

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Multidisciplinary dispersed firm launches to target UK high-net-worth clients

A  UK-based flexible law firm targeting high-net-worth clients has launched with the goal of bringing solicitors, barristers, chartered legal executives and paralegals under one roof. The new business, Wildcat Law, is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority as an alternative business structure and is currently awaiting Financial Conduct Authority approval so it can begin providing financial services advice alongside legal counsel.Founded by Tahina Akther, a practising barrister at South...

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Cooley and Milbank tapped to bring Grindr through $2.1bn SPAC deal

Cooley and Milbank are taking gay social networking app Grindr through a special purpose acquisition (SPAC) merger with Tiga Acquisition Corp (TAC) in a deal valued at $2.1bn. Grindr’s existing equity shareholders will maintain a 78% ownership stake when it lists on the New York Stock Exchange via the merger in a deal that is expected to close in the second half of the year.A team from Cooley is advising West Hollywood-based Grindr, while Milbank is advising Singapore-based blank check company T...

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France's Mermoz Avocats doubles lawyer headcount following merger with local PE boutique

Parisian boutique Mermoz Avocats has doubled its lawyer headcount within six months of launching following a merger with local firm HPML. The deal sees the two private equity and M&A-focused firms join forces to create a shop with 50 lawyers – twice the number Mermoz had when it was opened in January by a group of senior French lawyers to take advantage of the country’s mid-market PE and M&A deal-making boom. Mermoz described HPML as a ‘key player’ in the PE and M&A segment, with the firm comple...

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Half of UK corporate lawyers expect to leave their job within two years, report finds

Almost half of corporate lawyers in the UK are actively looking for a new position as attitudes towards traditional work models in the legal profession continue to shift, according to research by legal services provider Axiom Law. The New Life in the Law study also revealed a majority of corporate lawyers in the UK are showing more interest in alternative career paths especially given the growing popularity of alternative legal service providers (ALSP) in the global legal industry. Some 48% of t...

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Women made up 49% of Fortune 500 general counsel appointments in 2021

The gender balance of general counsel appointments at US Fortune 500 companies reached near parity for the first time last year when 49% of the 59 new GCs unveiled were women.That near 50/50 balance compared to 42% of the 2020 appointments being female, up from just 28% in 2019, according to the Annual Fortune 500 General Counsel Report by leadership advisory and search firm Russell Reynolds. The study also highlighted increased churn among top GCs – caused in part by Covid-19 generated pressure...

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Germany's Hengeler Mueller names next co-managing partners

German firm Hengeler Mueller has elected Thomas Müller and Bernd Wirbel as co-managing partners, succeeding Georg Frowein and Rainer Krause in the top roles. The duo is set to take over from Frowein and Krause when their four-year term comes to an end as scheduled in July, the firm said. Müller, who is based in Frankfurt, has been a partner at the firm since 1996. He primarily advises large international private equity investors on German and European real estate transactions and has played a cr...

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Davis Polk draws fire for speaking at event to mark anniversary of Hong Kong's national security law

Davis Polk & Wardwell has drawn criticism over the decision of its Asia chair to participate in an event commemorating Hong Kong’s controversial national security law. Martin Rogers, who also leads the firm’s Asia litigation team, is slated to speak at The National Security Legal Law Forum on May 28, which has been organised by Hong Kong’s department of justice to mark the second anniversary of the law's introduction.While there is no suggestion either Rogers or his firm support the controversia...

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Dentons adds 17th Africa office with Tunisia tie-up

Dentons has added to its Africa network with another tie-up, this time in Tunisia, as the global giant moves to realise its ambition to be a leading pan-African law firm. The combination with Tunis-based Zaanouni Law Firm (ZLF) gives Dentons a footprint in its 17th location in Africa across 12 countries and adds two partners and 10 lawyers to its regional network, which has more than 250 lawyers. The firm said it expects the combination to be completed in the coming months subject to regulatory...

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Simpson Thacher re-hires real estate finance partner from Kirkland in London

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has re-hired James Esterkin from US rival Kirkland & Ellis as a partner in the firm’s real estate practice in London. Esterkin re-joins the firm five years after he departed for Kirkland as a real estate finance associate, where he was later promoted to partner in 2018. He was an associate during his first stint at Simpson Thacher between 2013 and 2017 after he began his legal career at Berwin Leighton Paisner – now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner – in 2011. He focuses his...

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Ropes & Gray and Sullivan & Cromwell advise on Pfizer's $11.6bn acquisition of migraine pill maker Biohaven

Ropes & Gray and Sullivan & Cromwell are acting in connection to Pfizer’s purchase of Connecticut-based migraine drug producer Biohaven Pharmaceuticals for $11.6bn, the company’s largest acquisition since 2016. The proposed deal, expected to close by early 2023, will see Pfizer acquire the remaining Biohaven shares left over after it invested $350m in exchange for 2.6% of Biohaven’s common stock in connection to the commercialisation of its migraine pills. The deal includes the purchase of Bioha...

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Wizz Financial hires White & Case partner as next general counsel in Dubai

Abu Dhabi-based fintech firm Wizz Financial has added a partner from White & Case’s global financial services regulatory team as its new general counsel and head of compliance. Adrianus Schoorl joins the cross-border payments company in Dubai after nearly three years at White & Case, where he worked across the Middle East from the firm’s offices in Dubai and Riyadh. He brings more than two decades of financial regulatory experience to the role, which Wizz said would allow it to streamline work w...

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DLA Piper, Roschier advise Philip Morris on $16bn cash offer for Swedish Match

DLA Piper and Roschier are advising Philip Morris Holland Holdings, an affiliate of Phillip Morris International, on its $16bn recommended public offer to the shareholders of Swedish Match. Phillip Morris's purchase of the Stockholm-based company, which manufactures a number of smoke-free products and announced last year it was set to go entirely smoke free, is the largest in the tobacco giant’s history and reflects its ambition to diversify its portfolio long term. Swedish Match is being advise...

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Ashurst and Travers Smith lead as Morrisons wins bidding war to rescue McColl's

Ashurst and Travers Smith are advising on UK supermarket giant Morrisons’ acquisition of convenience store franchise McColl’s after it was put into administration this week. The deal, by way of a pre-pack administration, will see Morrisons acquire all 1,160 of McColl’s stores and take on all of the company’s 16,000 employees as well as its two defined pension schemes.In securing the rescue deal, the Bradford-based grocery chain won out over petrol retailer EG Group, owned by the billionaire Issa...

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Norton Rose Fulbright hires partner from Cliffe Dekker to lead Cape Town banking and finance team

Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has hired partner Izak Lessing from local outfit Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr to lead its Cape Town banking and finance team, hard on the heels of a leadership change at the global firm's Africa arm.Lessing joins NRF's South Africa business – Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa – after a decade at Cliffe Dekker, where he was a director in the firm’s banking and finance group. Lessing’s official title upon joining the firm will be director, the South African equivalent to part...

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Fieldfisher doubles graduate training programme intake at Belfast legal support centre

UK top 30 firm Fieldfisher is doubling the intake of a new graduate training programme at its legal support centre in Belfast, after the conclusion of a pilot scheme last year. This year’s programme, organised in partnership with the University of Law, will see ten law graduates join the year-long paid training scheme after all five of last year’s inductees secured roles at the firm upon completion of the pilot scheme. Under the year-long paid scheme, the graduates will work across a range of Fi...

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Orrick raids RPC for 'rising star' London tech partner

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has hired a partner from RPC to boost its technology practice in London. Peter Sugden is joining the San Francisco-based firm three years after making partner at RPC. His is the third partner-level lateral hire secured by the firm in London this year, following the additions of data privacy advisor Kelly Hagedorn from Jenner & Block in April and employee and incentives specialist Anna Humphrey from Taylor Wessing in January. Sugden focuses his practice on advising t...

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'We still have a way to go': Macfarlanes unveils male-dominated partner round; underlines diversity goals

Macfarlanes has promoted two women in an eight-strong partnership round as it concedes it has a ‘way to go’ in its drive to improve its diversity as measured against a new set of targets.In the firm's largest set of promotions since nine lawyers were made up in 2019, the gender balance of 25% women is down on last year when three out of five promoted partners were women.The promotions come after the firm joined many of its UK rivals in unveiling a new set of diversity targets, which include the...

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Contract review startup Della raises $2.5m in first seed funding round

Della, an Anglo-French contract review legal technology startup has raised $2.5m in its first seed funding round.The firm said the cash injection from new investor Pragmatech Ventures and existing investors will be used to build the London-based startup’s presence in Europe and the US and enhance its AI-powered contract review offering.It cites Mishcon de Reya, Eversheds Sutherland, Fidal, and ‘several large multinational, enterprise organisations’ as customers.Founded in 2018, Della, which has...