Lateral Partner Moves in London

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.

July to August is traditionally a quiet time for the announcement of lateral partner moves and this year was quieter than most. We recorded a total of 47 lateral partner moves – a 12% decrease on the statistical average (54) for the same period over the past 5 years.

Nevertheless, despite portents of an economic Götterdämmerung, as evidenced by increasingly shrill warnings about the consequences of a “no deal” Brexit,  the prospect of a snap general election arising from the inherent instability of the UK’s hung parliament, a European-wide slow down, a looming global trade war and a seemingly insoluble Italian debt crisis, the number of lateral partner moves was actually up 7% on the same period last year.

Although there were no large multi-partner team moves in this round-up, a total of 10 firms hired two partners a-piece (either as individuals or two-partner teams).

Also of note in this edition

• Washington DC firm Crowell & Moring continued its seemingly never-ending raid on Squire Patton Boggs by nabbing its seventh partner from Squires inside a year;
• 21% of all laterals were non-partners moving into partnership. In a UK first, this included traditionally conservative New York firm Milbank which took an Allen & Overy senior associate into its partnership;
• 32% of all later hires were women.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss this article or any other aspect of the market in more depth.

Many thanks,

The Edwards Gibson Team