Field Fisher Waterhouse has bagged a three-lawyer team from Eversheds, taking respected franchising head Chris Wormald to co-head
its practice.
Wormald joins Field Fisher along with consultant and former franchising head Martin Mendelsohn and senior associate Shelley Nadler.
The hires represent a significant boost for Field Fisher’s franchising group, which will now be co-led by Wormald and Mark Abell. They take the combined team to 24 lawyers, including seven partners.
Wormald was a franchising partner at Eversheds for almost 12 years, taking over from Mendelsohn as head of the practice six years ago. Prior to working at Eversheds, Wormald worked at Simmons & Simmons and was a vice president and general counsel at McDonald’s Europe for 10 years.
Mendelsohn, who joins as a consultant but will have the title chair of franchising, was the founder chairman of the international franchising committee of the International Bar Association.
Abell said: “The Eversheds team have been our competitors for many years. We have always seen them as the only other real player in this area. Our combined resources [mean] we will be able to offer even better quality, cost-effective advice to clients, whether they are big multinationals or smaller start-up businesses. ”
Wormald added: “Bringing together our practices means we are now head and shoulders above other franchising practices, with an unrivalled client base of big brands, as well as companies whose brands may not be so prominent but which have used franchising to successfully develop their businesses.”
Eversheds has decided to overhaul its franchising group, creating a more general ‘routes to market’ team to be headed by Bruce Gripton. The news comes with Field Fisher also hiring a new construction head, taking on Pinsent Masons partner Laurence Fryer as a consultant.
