MOVING ON

PRIVATE PRACTICEPartnershipIt has been a busy week for recruitment, with a series of international moves catching the eye.Allen & Overy (A&O) leads...PRIVATE PRACTICEPartnershipIt has been a busy week for recruitment, with a series of international moves catching the eye.Allen & Overy (A&O) leads the way, swooping on a trio of US-qualified partners and one Spanish lawyer.

Corporate lawyers Daniel Cunningham and Joshua Cohn, both of top Wall Street firm Cravath Swaine & Moore, are joining the firms New York office, while finance specialist Thomas Werlen of Davis Polk & Wardwell will work out of the London office.

Leading Spanish corporate finance lawyer Iigo Gmez-Jordana is swapping Clifford Chances Madrid office for A&Os.But it is not all good news for A&O.

Corporate and finance specialist David Griston is leaving to rejoin CMS Cameron McKenna, where he was an assistant for five years, and will work in its Moscow office.

And corporate finance lawyer Ray Berg is leaving A&O for the London office of Osborne Clarke OWA.The London office of US firm Morrison & Foerster has brought in Julia Bracewell from fellow US firm Brobeck Hale & Dorr (where she was the first UK recruit) to head its business department.

And US firm Arnold & Porters London office has added corporate lawyer Jeremy Willcocks from Pinsent Curtis Biddle.However, returning to Pinsent Curtis Biddle, where she trained, is Linda Jones; she will be head of employment in its Birmingham office.Top clinical negligence lawyer Mervyn Fudge and his assistant, Claire Jewell, have left Devon firm Toller Beattie for south-west firm Clarke Willmott & Clarke.

Mr Fudge, who has acted for a large number of parents involved in the childrens heart scandal at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, is joint-lead solicitor for the Bristol Heart Childrens Action Group and is also solicitor to the National Committee Relating to Organ Retention.

Andrew Hannam, head of Clarkes clinical negligence team, said the department has doubled its fee income in the past year and he expects to exceed that growth in the next year.Elsewhere in London, as reported last week (see [2001] Gazette, 1 March, 4), the five partners of niche litigation firm Ralph Hume Garry are amicably going their separate ways: senior partner Stephen Ralph is going to London firm Dawson & Co, managing partner Peter Garry is joining Kent firm Cripps Harries Hall, David Grant is to head the London insolvency team of Manchester-based Halliwell Landau, IT/insurance specialist Berry Holding-Parsons is joining London niche IT firm Picton Howell, while boardroom disputes and white-collar lawyer John Hume has yet to announce his intentions.Dawson & Co is also adding commercial property partner Tony Green from Edwin Coe.Memery Crystal has recruited property finance partner Ross Johnstone from Clyde & Co and promoted commercial property lawyer Nicholas Huddert to partner.Insurance and reinsurance partner Edward Smerdon, along with his assistant Simon Goldring, have left Reynolds Porter Chamberlain for Davies Arnold Cooper.Property construction and development specialist Ivor Shrago has left his role in Hong Kong as managing director and general counsel to the Vigers Group and its parent company, Sunchase International, to join City firm Rosenblatt.The Gordon Dadds trio of Douglas Alexiou, Jeremy Fisher and Susan Philipps are to leave the firm on 31 July to set up a niche family law practice.

Roger Peters has replaced Mr Alexiou as senior partner.David Offenbach and Bernard Carnell, the senior partners of Offenbach & Co, are joining Simons Muirhead & Burton to work as consultants in the fraud, property and commercial fields.

Brian Spiro is leaving Simons Muirhead to join criminal law firm Burton Copeland.Lionel Judd has moved up from managing partner to senior partner at Cumberland Ellis Peirs following Roger Hollinsheads retirement from the role; he remains a partner and is head of the private client department.

Suzanne Eva is the new managing partner, and will continue as head of the company and commercial department.The Sheffield office of Nabarro Nathanson has a new head of commercial litigation in the shape of Gerard Khoshnaw, who joins from DLA.Manchester firm Wacks Caller has promoted commercial litigator Harvey Stringfellow to partner.Returning to an international theme, Linklaters & Alliance has moved projects, finance and energy partner James Douglass to Hong Kong.

PRIVATE PRACTICEAssociates/assistantsIn addition to its new partners (see above), Dawson & Co has recruited two senior solicitors: commercial litigator Kate Ledger from Travers Smith Braithwaite and employment lawyer Richard Linskell from in-house at the Engineering Employers Federation.Wacks Caller has also promoted commercial litigator Anna Duffy and employment lawyer David Walton to associate.Herbert Smith has eight new property assistants: Sally Ashworth from Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, Howard Bassford from CMS Cameron McKenna, Ian Caplan from Lawrence Graham, Nichola Dickson from Decherts, Peter Hawkes from Mellor Olsson in Australia, Una McNamara from Dublins Matheson Ormsby Prentice, Fiona Strachan from Shell International, and Mandeep Ubbey from Slaughter and May.A property lawyer leaving Herbert Smith is Tim Allsop, who has gone to the Cambridge office of Mills & Reeve.City firm Taylor Joynson Garrett has hired one senior associate tax lawyer Nigel Kempton from US firm Sidley & Austin and three associates:l Richard Beckingsale (property, from Browne Jacobson);l Jonathan Bew (finance and projects, from Wildes); andl Jane Englefield (intellectual property from Deacons in Australia).Also leaving Wildes is reconstruction and insolvency lawyer Eleanor Maxwell, who has joined Morgan Coles London office as a senior solicitor.Finishing, as we begun, internationally, Norton Rose has hired husband and wife corporate finance team Natasha and Zubair Mir as senior associates for its Bahrain office.

They join from the London office of Linklaters & Alliance.