Lehman lawyers paid as hopes rise of UK deal

Hopes are rising that some jobs in Lehman Brothers' 50-strong in-house legal team can be saved as some legal staff were today told that they would be paid until the end of the month.

The move contradicts earlier expectations that the entire UK legal team would lose their jobs in the wake of the bank's shock insolvency and comes as Barclays today (17 September) sealed a £1bn deal to acquire a sizeable chunk of Lehman's investment bank and capital markets business on Wall Street.

The Barclays deal has raised expectations that the bank would be interested in taking on some of Lehman's UK business, including its legal team. As revealed on Tuesday (16 September) by legalweek.com, Clifford Chance is advising Barclays on the deal.

Paying the legal team until the end of the month would give an acquirer more time to put together a bid for UK assets under the insolvency procedure being currently overseen by administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is being advised by Linklaters.

Some of the legal team are also expected to be deployed on the UK insolvency procedure.

However, even with Lehman's in-house legal team set to be paid for the coming weeks, consultants have reported that rival banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have began actively scouting for senior legal recruits.

Senior lawyers in Lehman's UK legal team include Elizabeth Lee, global head of legal and compliance; Piers Le Marchant, MD for legal, Huw Merriman, head of capital markets and derivatives; David Swanson, head of fixed income; Ian Jameson, head of global compliance; Sarah MacMorrow, head of global finance; Bhavesh Dattani, head of equity derivates and structured products; and Piers Roberts, head of ECM.

It is understood that some of the 40 staff that work alongside Lehman's core legal team in documentation are also to be paid until the end of the month.

See Legal Village: A dark mood on Wall St for more analysis.

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