Law Firm Partner Moves in London - Issue 47

September - October 2018

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Welcome to the latest round-up of lateral partner moves in the legal market from Edwards Gibson; where we look back at announced partner-level recruitment activity in London over the past two months and give you a ‘who’s moved where’ update.

After a relatively subdued start to 2018, where at the half year point partner hires were down by nearly a quarter on 2017, there were 90 partner hires in this edition – 17% up on the same period last year and 18% up on the statistical average over the preceding 5 year period. The overall number of lateral hires was particularly high considering there were no large team moves consisting of three or more partners.

A recurring theme of the past two years has been the sheer volume of partner hires in Corporate Crime/ Investigations and this round-up is no exception. Five firms, Addleshaw Goddard, BLM, DWF, Kingsley Napley and RPC, have all announced lateral hires in this space, in two instances at the expense of the SFO.

Also of note is the disproportionately high number of corporate tax moves – fully 7% of all hires recorded in this edition were in tax with partners joining DLA Piper, Greenberg Traurig, Katten Muchin Rosenman, Mayer Brown, Osborne Clarke and Wiggin.

By far the most acquisitive firm over the past two months was White & Case which snapped up a half dozen new partners across a diverse range of practice areas from disputes to structured products.

Top partner recruiters in London September – October 2018

White & Case	6
Addleshaw Goddard	3
Fladgate	3
DLA Piper	3
TLT Solicitors	3

Also of note:

-	8 laterals moved from in-house including two from the SFO;
-	Excluding moves from in-house, 22% of all laterals were non-partners moving into partnership;
-	15% of all laterals were Heads of Department at their previous firm;
-	Whilst it has been announced in the press that private equity and tax duo Mark Soundy and Sarah Priestley are departing from Goodwin Procter, this move has not been recorded in this edition as their destination is yet to be confirmed.