City’s brightest named in legal hot 100 line-up
SOME of the City’s top lawyers have been named on the industry’s annual Hot 100 list, including the silk helping Guardian Care Homes pursue Barclays for Libor-related mis-selling and the partner leading Co-op through its bid for Lloyds bank branches.
The Lawyer magazine’s 2013 list, released yesterday, singles out 100 legal names to watch this year, with restructuring partners, corporate dealmakers and in-house counsel all winning spots on the roster.
Among the magic circle firms, Slaughter and May’s incoming executive partner Richard Clark makes the cut, as does competition partner Claire Jeffs and tax chief Sara Luder.
Allen & Overy boasts two partners on the list – Charles Lindsay, who launched an Istanbul office just over a year ago, and energy star Gareth Price, made head of projects last May.
Turnaround specialist Adam Gallagher, who led the team advising senior lenders on the Biffa restructuring, makes the grade at Freshfields, as does corporate heavyweight Jennifer Bethlehem – one of the 46 female lawyers ton the list this year.
And at Linklaters, litigation partner Christa Band, Emea managing partner Sandeep Katwala, M&A man Iain Wagstaff and banking and restructuring’s Bruce Bell are all named.
Hilary Evenett, the Clifford Chance partner who spent much of 2012 helping Co-op put together its bid for 632 branches of Lloyds, also makes the list.
Elsewhere, high-profile insolvencies have thrown several lawyers into the spotlight, including Ashley Katz at Mayer Brown, who’s working with administrators Deloitte as they tackle Comet, and Charlotte Moller at Reed Smith – helping KPMG wind down spread betting firm WorldSpreads.
Also on the list are Irwin Mitchell’s Alison Eddy, the London managing partner of the personal injury specialist that has said it may consider a stock market listing after last year’s Legal Services Act opened up the sector, and Brick Court Chambers’ Tim Lord QC – who won the right last week to name Barclays staff at the High Court as part of the ongoing Libor rate-fixing case.