Ropes' Windy City debut

Ropes & Gray has announced the opening of a new office in Chicago, bringing aboard three local attorneys to manage the practice: James Lidbury, Jonathan Grandon and Deborah Monson, all formerly partners at Mayer Brown in Chicago. Lidbury and Grandon’s practices focus on mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, and corporate and securities matters. Monson’s practice focuses on investment management, including hedge funds and commodities matters. All three will join Ropes & Gray as partners.
“We see in Chicago and the entire Midwest region a significant opportunity to continue our strategic growth into attractive markets,” said R. Bradford Malt, chairman of the firm, in a statement. Malt also said he expects the office will grow quickly, though for the time being, two Boston-based private equity partners, David Chapin and John Ayer, will be spending significant time in the Chicago office to facilitate integration and practice development.
“Jim [Lidbury] and Jon [Grandon] are widely recognized for the quality of their transaction work, and they have an outstanding reputation for client service, advising an array of clients on a broad range of M&A-related work, governance issues and strategic initiatives,” added Malt. “We are also delighted that Debbie will be joining our preeminent investment management practice.”
Lidbury was an attorney in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporate Finance before joining Mayer Brown in 1994. He was named recently to the 2008 BTI Transactions “Super All-Star Team” as one of the top three M&A lawyers in the United States. Grandon was an associate at Simpson Thacher in New York, prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2004. “There is a pool of high caliber legal talent in Chicago that would fit well with our traditional strengths and an opportunity to provide the sophisticated Midwestern private equity market with a very capable and credible local alternative,” says Lidbury.
“We’ve made a serious commitment to grow in that market.”
With the new Chicago office, Ropes & Gray now has seven locations including Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Palo Alto, San Francisco, London and Tokyo, where the firm opened offices in October of last year.
The Tokyo office, however, is staffed exclusively by intellectual property lawyers, though in announcing the opening in Japan, the firm noted the office may serve as a base to serve clients in several areas.