Partners Geoffrey Gauci (pictured below right), James Irvine and Charles Pugh leave Howrey’s global litigation practice on Friday (29 February) with
Trevor Soames (pictured left) – who heads up Howrey’s European antitrust practice and was named acting London managing partner last September to lead a review of the office – said the firm was refocusing its efforts in the City in a bid to drive up profitability.
He commented: “The partners have mutually concluded with the firm that Howrey’s business is not compatible with theirs. The
The office will now concentrate on intellectual property (IP) and antitrust work, with litigation set to become a back-up function to the core teams.
Soames added: “This is a fairly significant change. We have refocused on the things that will make us a top-tier practice.”
Howrey’s City IP practice now has six partners, having this year hired Marjan Noor and Paul Inman from Taylor Wessing and Simmons & Simmons respectively.
Bristows co-managing partner Paul Walsh commented: “This is a real coup for us and is a fantastic endorsement for our disputes resolution practice. [It] provides us with enormous additional resource for the increasingly important major litigation emerging at the interface between our IP and competition practices.”