Taking a gamble on red-meat litigation

It’s been a while since a US-based law firm made a genuinely eye-catching hire in London but Wednesday saw both New York’s Debevoise & Plimpton and Anglo-American giant Mayer Brown achieve that distinction, in both cases in litigation.

With all due respect to Clare Canning and Mayer Brown, Debevoise’s surprise recruitment of the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC, is the more striking.

Goldsmith - a former Bar Council chairman, one of the City’s top commercial silks and the most high-profile Attorney General of recent years - brings a serious CV to Debevoise.

Indeed, many were surprised that Debevoise, despite its quality European arbitration practice, had the international clout or brand to attract Goldsmith. Some at the Bar will interpret his decision not to return to Fountain Court as a snub for the impeccably-connected set.

Yet, the match makes a little more sense once you look closer. Debevoise’s litigation practice made an early move in the UK contentious market with its recruitment years ago of arbitration heavyweight and former deputy High Court judge Arthur Marriott QC (even if Marriott quit for LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae in 2005). Debevoise’s contentious practice in the US also boasts the services of celebrated white-collar crime specialist Mary Jo White, herself a former US New York district attorney.

Perhaps as important given Goldsmith’s long public support for all things pro bono, Debevoise is regarded as one of Manhattan’s most socially-committed corporate firms, with Debevoise traditionally nestling near the top of American Lawyer’s pro bono rankings.

It arguably also makes sense for top-level barristers to join a US firm rather than a UK practice, since litigators and former public office-holders will always feel more central in an American firm.

With Debevoise in 2006 averaging equity partner profits of $1.81m, the firm can also easily offer Goldsmith more than £1m annually once he becomes a partner.

Lord Goldsmith himself dismisses allegations that his prime motivation was the lucrative pay-packet, claiming (probably accurately) that he could have made more money had he returned to the Bar.

In comparison, the move of a three-partner Barlow Lyde & Gilbert litigation team led by Canning to Mayer Brown, as exclusively revealed on legalweek.com yesterday, in many ways begs more questions.

For a start, these are two firms going through sometimes turbulent changes. In the case of Mayer Brown, which is not letting a sweeping restructuring programme stop it from continuing a sustained hiring spree in the City, you suspect either the firm is going great guns or the wheels are about to come off the wagon.

The timing is also interesting, coming as firms like Barlows gear up for a wave of financial services litigation in the wake of the credit crunch.

For Mayer Brown, Canning certainly brings a near-matchless profile in professional negligence work, having been lauded for leading Barlows’ successful defence of Ernst & Young in the four-year Equitable Life litigation. She also headed the firm’s commercial litigation team.

But there had been claims for a while that Canning, who leaves the firm after 22 years, had become detached from Barlows after the end of Equitable Life. Whatever the reality, Barlows’ non-insurance litigation team, which will now be headed up by Julian Randall, faces challenging times to maintain its position.

Two interesting appointments, both of which look to be calculated gambles. It seems that in the post-crunch market, law firms are once again ready to take a chance on top-level contentious hires.

james.illman@legalweek.com