Englishmen in New York

With banks as 17 out of its 20 biggest clients worldwide, Linklaters is following the money trail – to New York. The UK law firm has had an office in New York for 35 years, but it is only in the past four years that the firm has been bulking up its team in the US.
From about 30 lawyers in 2003, it now counts 140 lawyers at its Avenue of the Americas location, or six percent of its 2,500 lawyer headcount worldwide.
“The development of the office in New York really arises as a result of the firm’s global strategy,” says Paul Wickes, US managing partner at Linklaters. “A major thrust of the firm’s activities around the world today is on the private equity side, both in terms of representing buyers and sellers in private equity transactions and also to a significant extent representing our finance clients in the financing of private equity transactions.”
Linklaters is counting on its geographic reach of 30 offices in 23 countries and mix of corporate, financing and litigation work to differentiate itself from its competitors. The firm is one of the “magic circle” law firms in the UK, and also counts strengths in Europe, Brazil and Asia.
In New York, the firm counts one third of the partners are in litigation, and the balance in corporate, funds, banking, capital markets, and structured finance and derivatives.
Linklaters has been hiring aggressively to build its private equity practice. In the US, it recruited Scott Bowie from Latham & Watkins in 2005, which also marked the firm’s establishment of its US investment practice. Bowie now heads Linklaters’ US private equity funds and investment management practice in New York. The firm’s other investment management partner in New York is Stephen Culhane, who joined from King & Spalding in 2006.
More recently, in a round of firm-wide partner promotions in April 2007, the firm promoted Joshua Berick to partner, also in New York. Berick, who focuses on corporate/M&A transactions and private equity, joined from Debevoise & Plimpton. Five other partners practicing private equity were promoted in Amsterdam, Beijing, London and Paris, out of 38 promotions in all.
Although Linklaters counts a degree of success in private equity, such as advising Kohlberg Kravis Roberts on the listing of its private equity vehicle in Amsterdam and on the closing of KKR’s second European buyout fund, it has had its share of losses in Europe.
Last year, its private equity head Graham White and partner Raymond McKeeve left for the London office of Kirkland & Ellis.
But the firm’s global ambitions are serious. It bagged a rising private equity star, Ian Bagshaw from Clifford Chance, this past February, to work alongside Richard Youle in London. Bagshaw’s key clients – The Blackstone Group and Macquarie – would be a welcome addition to Linklaters’ private equity client roster, which includes AIG, The Carlyle Group and Sun Capital Partners.