Linklaters gets its NY groove back

Three years ago, the UK magic circle were considered dead ducks in New York.

But recent months have witnessed a renewed bout of self-confidence, not least because of the rebound this year in their profits. Today, Linklaters announces a further ramping up of its presence in the Big Apple with the hire of a team of four partners and around a dozen associates from White & Case (see story). The regulatory team’s arrival will swell the number of partners in Linklaters’ New York office to 26, nine of whom will be litigators. Paul Wickes, the head of the New York office and a litigator himself, says: “We have always said that we expect that the litigation team in New York will make up around a third of the office.”

This reflects the importance of litigation in the US legal market. It was Wickes’ hire in July 2003 from Shearman & Sterling, along with two other litigation partners and a senior associate, that signalled the start of Linklaters’ current push in New York. Until then, the firm had been attempting to secure a merger - a policy that required a softly, softly approach to lateral hiring, for fear of alienating potential merger partners.

Its new strategy required a new approach. Putting a native New Yorker in charge of the office made a lot of sense – as did the firm’s litigation focus. “If the magic circle firms want to have respected US practices and attract the big US clients, they need to build their litigation capabilities,” says the head of a leading US firm. “The Linklaters move makes a lot of sense.”

The readiness of the White & Case team to join Linklaters can at least partly be explained by its international horizons. Larry Byrne, for example, recently represented Royal Ahold on a non-prosecution arrangement with the US Attorney’s office. But make no mistake, Byrne and Joseph Armao, in particular, are established names in New York.

New York lawyers are fond of saying how seldom they rub up against lawyers from magic circle firms on their home ground. It is not a boast that White & Case can currently indulge in.

john.malpas@legalweek.com