Clifford Chance (CC) has strengthened its City construction practice with the hire of Herbert Smith partner Tracy London.
London, who specialises in non-contentious construction work, has been a partner at Herbert Smith since 2006, having joined the firm in 1999. Her hire will take CC’s City construction practice to three partners and 18 fee earners.
It is the latest move by the magic circle firm to strengthen its real estate practice and follows last year’s hires of partners Franc Pena and Catherine Cook from Berwin Leighton Paisner.
London will join CC as an equity partner — a step up from her salaried partner status at Herbert Smith.
Tim Steadman, head of CC’s construction group, told Legal Week: “[London] is the perfect fit for our group, which is expanding fast in terms of both regions and sectors. Her experience in the energy, oil and gas sectors, notably renewables, will be especially valuable to us. She is joining us as one step along a road that will see us making up more partners in due course, probably from internal sources.”
London’s departure will leave Herbert Smith’s construction and engineering group with seven partners from different practice groups covering both contentious and non-contentious matters.
The firm’s real estate head, Iain Rothnie, said of London: “We will be sorry to see her go and wish her all the best in the future.”
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