December/January’s Mergers, Alliances and New Offices
February 1 2002
An international association of firms – the State Capital Global Law Firm Group – recently voted to admit four new members: Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand of Washington DC; Lehman, Lee & Xu of Beijing; Boss & Young of Shanghai; and Almihdar Law Firm of Saudi Arabia. In Asia, two of Japan’s biggest firms have agreed a merger that will catapult them to the top of the country’s premier league. Mori Sogo and Hamada & Matsumoto will merge by January 1 2003, creating a full service firm with more than 140 lawyers. Meanwhile, German multidisciplinary practice Haarmann Hemmelrath & Partner has set up a joint venture with Tokyo-based corporate specialist Saburo Shimizu, making it the first independent German law firm to launch a local practice in Japan. US firm Dorsey & Whitney has secured a Japanese joint venture too. The recently finalized agreement is with three-partner Kyo Sogo Law Offices. UK firm Norton Rose is set to reopen its Hong Kong office in April 2002 following its enforced departure in 1999, when its association with local firm Johnson Stokes & Master broke down. In Continental Europe, US firm Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson has set up an office in Germany at the request of one of its biggest investment banking clients. UK shipping firm Ince & Co is taking over the French offices of rival niche shipping firm Constant & Constant, and has opened offices in Le Havre (the first UK firm to have a presence there) and Paris. Partner Chris Moore will oversee the new offices from London. Belgian firm Price & Partners and UK firm DLA have merged. This is the first full European integration of two DLA & Partners firms. Arent van Wassenaer van Catwijck, the former managing partner of Dutch firm Houthoff Buruma, has launched a new boutique firm with a former Trenité van Doorne partner, Edo Groenewald. The new firm, called Groenewald/VanWassenaer Advocaten, offers services in the areas of arbitration/ADR, public procurement and major projects. In Italy, Milan-based Piergrossi Villa Manca Graziadei is set to link up with UK firm Eversheds. Piergrossi has a strong telecommunications, IP and IT law practice. From February 1 2002, Italian firm Adonnino Ascoli & Cavasola Scamoni becomes CMS Cameron McKenna’s latest member. Italian firm Studio Legale Sutti has announced the opening of a local office in the centre of Monza, for the Brianza area, managed by David Valsecchi. US firm Jones Day Reavis & Pogue has opened an office in Milan to which David Rooso and Peter Sternberg will relocate. In Spain, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ affiliated law firm, Landwell, has taken over a 12-lawyer tax practice in Alicante – two-partner Corno & Cardona. Brazilian firm Veraino has been welcomed into the Simmons & Simmons network through a formal joint venture with the latter’s Lisbon office, Grupo Legal Português. In Yugoslavia, UK law firm Clyde & Co has strengthened its European practice with the opening of an associate office in Belgrade. In the United Kingdom, Liverpool-based Hill Dickinson has boosted its commercial practice by merging with niche Manchester firm Gorna & Co. Six of the seven Gorna partners are joining Hill Dickinson’s partnership, with the seventh becoming a consultant. City firm Taylor Joynson Garrett has boosted its technology practice by opening an office in Cambridge. The firm has recruited David Mardle and Simon Crossley, as well as a team of five associates, from Garretts’ Cambridge office. Corporate partner Simon Walker will head the practice. In the United States, UK firm Withers is to merge with private client firm Bergman Horowitz & Reynolds based in New Haven, Connecticut. Withers’ senior partner Diana Parker will become chairwoman of the firm, which will be called Withers Bergman in the United States and Withers elsewhere. Washington DC-based Holland & Knight LLP has merged with New York firm Gilbert, Segall and Young LLP. Hunton & Williams has merged with Texas-based Worsham Forsythe & Wooldridge. New York-based Morgan Lewis & Bockius has strengthened its patent litigation capability by merging with Hopgood Calimafde Judlowe & Mondolino. Washington DC-based Hogan & Hartson has merged with Squadron Ellenoff Plesent & Sheinfeld (with offices in New York and Los Angeles), taking its total number of lawyers to more than 900. In Brazil, US firm Baker & McKenzie has opened a fourth office, taking its global tally to 62. The office is headed by partners Claudio Mangoni Moretti and Ricardo Dornelles Chaves Barcellos, who lead a team of six associates. Brazilian firm Souza, Cescon Avedissian, Barrieu e Flesch Advogados opened an office in Rio de Janeiro on January 2 2002, just one year after the firm’s foundation. The new office is headed by partner Mauricio Teixeira dos Santos.
