Legal Executive Assistant

Weekly update - 20th april 2026. Welcome to this week's update, where we bring you the latest moves, promotions, and strategic appointments shaping the legal industry. Partner Moves Individual UK & Ireland Weil Gotshal & Manges has hired a Partner from Kirkland & Ellis in London, as it continues to build out its global secondaries capability. Charles Cooper-Isow joins the firm's private equity practice, focusing on secondaries transactions. Structured Finance Partner Suzanne Bell will be moving to Orrick and leaving Cadwalader, which is gearing up for a merger with Hogan Lovells. Mayer Brown has hired Leveraged Finance Partner Sarah Goodwin in London from Kirkland, as it continues to build out its private capital offering in London. Norton Rose Fulbright has announced that Dr. Stephanie Pantelidaki has joined the firm as Partner (non-legal) and Head of Transfer Pricing for EMEAPAC, based in London. Stephanie is an economist and joins the firm from Baker McKenzie, where she was a Partner in the tax team. Linklaters has hired M&A Partner Owen Ross to bolster its insurance practice in London. Ross joins from CMS, where he was a Partner in the Financial Services team specialising in insurance. Maureen Daly has joined Reddy Charlton LLP as a Partner. Ms Daly specialises in all areas of intellectual property law and joins from Pinsent Masons. Harper Macleod has announced the appointment of new Partner Jacqueline Cook to its planning team. Jacqueline Cook joins from Burges Salmon in Edinburgh. Norton Rose Fulbright has announced that Real Estate Partner Diane Le Chevallier has joined its Paris office. Diane Le Chevallier joins the firm after nine years at De Pardieu Brocas Maffei. Middle East Stephenson Harwood is building its Middle East insurance litigation capability with the relocation of Partner Richard Hugg to the Dubai office. Ropes & Gray announced that leading Private Equity and M&A Partner Fabrizio Scaparro and experienced Private Equity Counsel Paola Pagani have joined the firm's Milan office. They both join from Giovannelli e Associati where Scaparro was a Founding Partner. Bird & Bird boosts its Employment team in Paris with two new partners - Philippe Thomas and Thibault Meiers. They both join from Dechert. Promotions & Appointments A&O Shearman has unveiled its Partner promotions round for 2026, with nine lawyers elevated in London and four in the US. The numbers in London and the US are identical to last year when 33 lawyers globally also made the cut. Eversheds Sutherland (International) announced 25 partner promotions for 2026, up from 23 Partner promotions in 2025. Freshfields has announced its largest-ever Partner promotions round, making up 43 new Partners globally. It's a significant level up from last year's 25 partner promotions. Irwin Mitchell has announced its latest annual promotions with 12 being promoted to Partner, down from 14 last year. Radford Goodman has been appointed as Head of the Insolvency and Restructuring Group. Radford joined Mishcon in 2024 from Norton Rose Fulbright, where he was a Partner for 15 years. Firm and Market Activity Office Openings & Closings Linklaters is closing its eight-year-old Hamburg office as it continues a broader pullback from underperforming European markets. Gilson Gray has opened a new office at 14 Rutland Square, joining its existing city centre locations at 6, 25 and 29 Rutland Square. The firm will take sole occupation of 10 Devonshire Square, currently home to WeWork, which spans more than 67,000 sq ft across five floors and includes a private roof terrace. RPC says the space will be fully redesigned to support hybrid working and client meetings. Pamela Keely has established Gantly Keely Solicitors in Bray, following the acquisition of Wicklow's established private law practice Rosemary Gantly Solicitors. Mergers & Alliances Partners at Hogan Lovells and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft have voted in favour of what has been described as the largest law firm combination in history. Hogan Lovells Cadwalader will have annual revenue of more than $3.6 billion and a team of 3,100 lawyers across 18 countries, becoming one of the top firms globally by revenue and size. Perkins Coie and Ashurst announced today that the partnerships of both firms have voted overwhelmingly to approve their proposed combination. The approval follows consultation from both firms and reflects strong support for the combination of two law firms with highly complementary geographic reach, sector depth, and practice strength. The merged firm joins an elite club of U.S. legal giants that operate their international arms through Delaware-incorporated structures; pre-merger, both Winston & Strawn's London operation and Taylor Wessing were registered as conventional U.K. LLPs. Taylor Wessing's German arm, which is not set to be joining the UK alliance's Winston & Strawn deal, is understood to have approached a number of UK mid-tier firms about a tie-up, with no deal agreed as yet. Financial Results A standout year for Latham & Watkins, with record profits, surging revenues and headline mandates driving performance at the very top of the market. Key numbers: revenue: $8.3 billion (first time past $8bn); PEP: $8.65 million (up 21.3%); revenue per lawyer: $2.2 million (up 14%); and Lawyer headcount: 3,724 (up 4%). Revenue grew by 9.4% and revenue per lawyer rose 8.3% in 2025 at Ropes & Gray. Harbottle & Lewis has become the second of the City independent firms to announce its financial results for 2025/26. The firm posted revenue of £58.3m for the financial year, up 8.3 per cent on the £53.8m of 2024/25 and around 130 per cent on the £25.2m of 2015/16. Harbottles has not yet revealed other metrics, but in 2024/25 net profit was £22.5m and average profit per equity partner was £752,000. Its profit margin that year was 41.8 per cent, second only to pensions boutique Sackers among the 13 City independents in the UK51-100 bracket of the UK200. Milbank has posted an 11 per cent revenue uplift in London, as the New York firm saw its global turnover jump past the $2bn mark for the first time. The firm reported London revenue of $366.2m for the financial year 2025, up from $327m the previous year, marking an increase of more than 11 per cent. Sidley Austin's London office has increased its revenue by 32 per cent, as the US firm reaps the rewards of an increasingly aggressive hiring strategy on both sides of the Atlantic. The firm saw its London revenue increase by 31.9 per cent to $299m. The rise reinforces a pattern of consistent double-digit expansion, marking the 13th year of consecutive revenue growth in the City. Market Commentary Legora today launched a new global brand campaign, featuring Jude Law, as it accelerates the international expansion of its collaborative legal AI platform. The campaign marks a new phase in Legora's growth strategy and maturity, as the company continues to scale its presence in key legal markets, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the EU, and drives deeper adoption among leading law firms and in-house legal teams. The shortlist for this year's The Lawyer Awards is now live, with law firms, barristers' chambers and in-house departments all nominated for prizes celebrating team and individual excellence. Innovation and Culture Technology & Innovation OpenAI has signed for its first permanent office in London at Endurance Land's Regent Quarter scheme in King's Cross. The company has taken 88,500 sq ft across Jahn Court and the Brassworks Building. OpenAI currently employs around 200 people in London and the new office, which is expected to open in 2027, will have capacity for up to 544 people. Simmons & Simmons has welcomed eight students to its new AI law internship, in what the firm says is the UK's first dedicated programme of its kind. The two-week internship, which began this week in London, gives students hands-on experience working with the firm's AI team across both legal and technical projects.

Ropes & Gray hires eight-lawyer M&A and PE team in Paris from Latham. 25 March 2026 Group led by three veteran Latham partners significantly expands Paris office Ropes opened last year targeting private capital work Ropes & Gray has snagged an eight-lawyer M&A and private equity team in Paris from Latham & Watkins. The team is led by partners Denis Criton, Gaetan Gianasso and Michael Colle, who are expected to join the firm alongside a counsel and four associates. Criton and Gianasso are both veterans of Latham of more than 20 years, while Colle joined the firm about 10 years ago as an associate. Criton and Gianasso have particular expertise in leveraged acquisitions and, between them, have worked for clients including PAI Partners, Bain Capital Private Equity, Ardian and EQT, while Gianasso's practice covers the full spectrum of M&A and PE transactions, including hybrid capital and IPOs. Advertisement Ropes declined to comment on the hires, which continue the buildout of the Paris office it opened last March with a Clifford Chance team focused on private equity, infrastructure, banking and finance transactions. A 10-lawyer funds and tax team joined from Linklaters earlier this year, with the office currently housing five partners and 22 lawyers according to Ropes' website. The firm's push into European private equity also saw it hit Latham last year for a trio of PE lawyers to open an office in milan. LAW OVER BORDERS COMPARATIVE GUIDES luxury law guide this third edition provides answers and insight into how luxury businesses can protect their brands in a range of jurisdictions... | 1yr. That has come as part of a wider transatlantic hiring drive that has seen Ropes add senior talent in London, including EQT's general counsel Paul Dali earlier this year and Cataldo Piccarreta from Latham last September as co-head of European private equity transactions. Meanwhile, in New York, the firm has made nine lateral partner hires so far this year, most recently adding Freshfields' leveraged finance co-head, Allison Liff. Latham did not respond to a request for comment. A five-lawyer competition team also left the firm in Paris earlier this month to join top French independent August Debouzy.

Ropes & Gray releases Investment Management Update. March 25, 2026 In March, Ropes & Gray released a comprehensive Investment Management Update covering January and February 2026 that summarizes regulatory developments impacting the investment management industry. Of note for independent fund directors, the Commission issued a release amending the compliance dates for the reporting requirements added to Form N-PORT when the SEC adopted amendments to the Names Rule are extended to November 17, 2027 for registered fund complexes with net assets of $10 billion or more (instead of $1 billion) as of the end of their most recent fiscal year, and to May 18, 2028, for smaller registered fund complexes. The Commission also released a proposal that would amend the definitions of "Small Business" and "Small Organization" for investment companies and investment advisers for purposes of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. The proposed amendments would increase the current asset-based thresholds and propose a mechanism for future periodic inflation adjustments. For investment companies, the current definition of a small entity is net assets of $50 million or less. Under the rule proposal, that threshold would jump to $10 billion. The Ropes update details additional changes that would be implemented if the proposed rule were adopted. In addition, the Ropes update explains new FAQs added to the original "Fund Names Rule FAQs" from January 2025, highlights Investment Management Division Director Brian Daly's comments around proxy voting challenges, and notes Chair Atkins' reported comments around progress on an e-delivery rule proposal allowing funds to deliver electronic documents to shareholders by default instead of mailing physical documents.