Simmons Recruits Partner for Singapore Launch

Simmons & Simmons has hired a new partner for a planned Singapore office.

Dan Marjanovic was previously a Sydney partner with Norton Rose, where he headed the firm's banking and finance practice in Australia.

London-based Simmons & Simmons is currently applying to open an office in Singapore. Marjanovic will initially join the firm's Hong Kong office and relocate once the Singaporean government approves the new office.

Qualified in the U.K. and in Australia, Marjanovic specializes in advising banks, sponsors and corporate borrowers on cross-border financings.

Marjanovic has previously worked in Singapore. He joined the Singapore office of now-defunct Coudert Brothers as a partner in 2004 and moved to DLA Piper's local office the following year. In 2006, he joined the Singapore office of Deacons Australia and subsequently relocated to Sydney; Deacons merged with Norton Rose in 2010.

Prior to moving to Singapore, Marjanovic was a partner in London with the former Denton Wilde Sapte.

Simmons & Simmons, which has more than 1,500 lawyers worldwide, says its Singapore office will focus on project finance and technology. The firm also has Asia offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo.

Three Dewey Alums Launch New Firm

The implosion of Dewey & LeBoeuf has rocked all corners of the legal world. But there is at least one positive result -- a new professional alliance among lawyers who once worked in the national firm's former Hartford, Conn., office.

The specialized financial product and commercial litigation law firm is based in West Hartford, launched by three attorneys who met while working more than 15 years ago in Hartford at what was then known as LeBoeuf, Lamb, Green & MacRae. The attorneys, Jim Reardon, Kathy Scanlon and Pete Vodola, all worked together representing insurance companies and other corporate clients.

Just before the firm's 2007 merger with Dewey Ballantine, which created Dewey & LeBoeuf, Scanlon and Vodola left to work for Pullman & Comley and other Connecticut firms in insurance defense and commercial litigation practices. Reardon moved to Dewey & LeBoeuf's New York office, where he stayed until the bottom fell out earlier this year.

On the up side, Reardon says he gained a big-firm perspective. "I was working for one of the largest litigation firms in the country, on a team of 20 lawyers, and that has really helped me manage large cases," Reardon said. "We can go toe-to-toe with any firm," he said of his new firm, known as Reardon Scanlon Vodola.

One thing the trio learned from their big-firm experience was how to divide the work up but still keep everyone in the loop. "That way we can be responsive to clients' changing needs," Reardon said.

His former colleagues, Vodola and Scanlon, have been working together ever since their early days in Hartford. "We have always worked well together," Scanlon explained. They saw Reardon's recent departure from Dewey & LeBoeuf as an opportunity to combine their comfort working on large litigation cases. Reardon "is an extremely tenacious and hard-driving litigator," Vodola said.

While they each work in specialized areas that for the most part typically involve protecting the interests of insurance companies, the firm's model is what they call flat. "In other words," Vodola said, "we are involved in each other's work."

Reardon's claim to fame is a 1999 case involving a man who faked his own death and tried to collect a $7 million insurance policy. While at Dewey & LeBoeuf, Reardon led an investigative forensic fraud case on behalf of the insurer that revealed Madison Rutherford set up an elaborate ruse to collect the money. "He ran off to Mexico and we proved it," Reardon said. Because of strange circumstances of the lawsuit, which was resolved in his client's favor, Reardon was invited to appear on 60 Minutes.

In that interview, Reardon was asked to describe how Rutherford went about faking his death. "Our understanding is he drove from the hotel that he was staying in Monterrey to the side of the road in Mexico," Reardon said on the show. "He took gasoline with him. He doused the vehicle in gasoline. And he rode away in a bicycle."

Other similar cases of fraudulent death claims have sent him to Israel and Europe.

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Beijing Rainmakers Band Together to Launch Antitrust Boutique

A dozen partners from leading Chinese firms have split off to set up their own firm.

The new firm, AnJie Law Firm, will be led by antitrust specialist Zhan Hao, currently an executive committee member at Beijing's Grandall Law Firm, as managing partner. Two other partners will serve on the AnJie's executive committee: former Zhong Lun Law Firm antitrust partner Michael Gu and former Beijing Mingtai Law Firm managing partner He Yu.

The moves were first reported Wednesday by mergermarket's Policy and Regulatory Report.

Gu says AnJie has hired 50 lawyers so far, including 12 partners, and will start operations in November. According to Gu, the new recruits include partners Chen Bin, Cheng Bing and Li Xiuzhe from Zhong Lun; partners Zheng Xilin and Huang Zaizai from Grandall; and some partners from Beijing firm Zhong Lun W&D as well.

Gu says Zhan is expected to bring a further 40 lawyers with him from Grandall.

Antitrust will be a major focus of the new firm. It is a relatively new practice area in China, with a competition law only coming into effect in the country in 2008. But it has quickly become a lucrative practice area for Chinese firms. Though Chinese authorities have only blocked or blessed a handful of major acquisitions in China itself, they also review global mergers for their impact on the China market; international parties on big deals are keen to hire the right lawyers to avoid delays.

In addition to antitrust, Gu says AnJie will advise on joint ventures, insurance, intellectual property and other foreign investment-related work. According to Gu, the firm expects to have a mainly international client base, including financial institutions, insurance companies and investment funds investing in China.

Gu says the firm has plans to expand into Shanghai and Shenzhen, and will also seek out potential alliances and relationships with law firms in the U.S. and the U.K. But he says the firm has no desire to pursue a King & Wood Mallesons-style merger.

Indeed, Gu suggests AnJie partners were looking for the opposite in terms of size and scope. Grandall has almost 600 lawyers while Zhong Lun has almost 500.

"We want to remain a Chinese firm," he says. "All our partners have come together because we want to work in a streamlined environment. The internal structure of our firm is important to us. Large firms often have too loose a management."

Jones Day Follows Duesseldorf Opening With Amsterdam Launch Plans

Jones Day is set to expand its European footprint with the launch of an Amsterdam office in early 2013.

The new base, which will initially concentrate on corporate and M&A, private equity, capital markets, litigation and antitrust, will be led by Luc Houben, who had previously held the role of partner-in-charge at the U.S. firm's Brussels office.

Houben, who has been at Jones Day for more than 20 years, has also practiced in New York and Tokyo and is currently involved in the firm's Japan practice.

The Amsterdam plans follow on from the opening of the firm's third German office in Duesseldorf in February.

Jones Day managing partner Steve Brogan commented: "The opening of our Amsterdam office, together with the recent addition of our Duesseldorf office, is a demonstration of Jones Day's confidence in and commitment to the future of the European Union, which remains the largest economy in the world."

Separately, the firm has strengthened its London corporate practice with the hire of partner Ferdinand Mason from leading Dutch firm Boekel de Neree.

Mason, who has been a partner at Boekel since 2000 and helped launch the firm's London office in 2010, is joined at Jones Day by Boekel senior associate Bastiaan Kout. Both started at the firm Monday, with Mason's hire taking the number of corporate partners in the office to 23.

Jones Day partner-in-charge for Europe and the Middle East Mary Ellen Powers noted: "Mason will play an essential role in the development of our new Amsterdam office and in the service of Dutch clients worldwide."

Jones Day Follows Duesseldorf Opening With Amsterdam Launch Plans

Jones Day is set to expand its European footprint with the launch of an Amsterdam office in early 2013.

The new base, which will initially concentrate on corporate and M&A, private equity, capital markets, litigation and antitrust, will be led by Luc Houben, who had previously held the role of partner-in-charge at the U.S. firm's Brussels office.

Houben, who has been at Jones Day for more than 20 years, has also practiced in New York and Tokyo and is currently involved in the firm's Japan practice.

The Amsterdam plans follow on from the opening of the firm's third German office in Duesseldorf in February.

Jones Day managing partner Steve Brogan commented: "The opening of our Amsterdam office, together with the recent addition of our Duesseldorf office, is a demonstration of Jones Day's confidence in and commitment to the future of the European Union, which remains the largest economy in the world."

Separately, the firm has strengthened its London corporate practice with the hire of partner Ferdinand Mason from leading Dutch firm Boekel de Neree.

Mason, who has been a partner at Boekel since 2000 and helped launch the firm's London office in 2010, is joined at Jones Day by Boekel senior associate Bastiaan Kout. Both started at the firm Monday, with Mason's hire taking the number of corporate partners in the office to 23.

Jones Day partner-in-charge for Europe and the Middle East Mary Ellen Powers noted: "Mason will play an essential role in the development of our new Amsterdam office and in the service of Dutch clients worldwide."

Kirkland & Ellis Eyes Beijing Launch

By Tom BrennanAll Articles

The Asian Lawyer

September 19, 2012

Kirkland & Ellis is planning to open a Beijing office.

The firm, which currently has offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, is in the process of applying for a license to operate in Beijing and expects government approval near the end of this year or the beginning of 2013, says Hong Kong partner David Zhang.

The office will be staffed by internal transfers, he says, most likely from Shanghai and Hong Kong but also potentially from the U.S. The number of partners and other lawyers who would make the move is still under consideration, but Zhang says the office will likely be a small one, at least to start.

"My sense is we'll build that out pretty quickly because the market demand is there," he says, adding that recruitment from other firms would likely happen eventually. "As we grow, we will engage in strategic, opportunistic hiring."

Zhang himself joined Kirkland last year from Latham & Watkins in a major push that saw the Chicago-based firm add eight partners in Hong Kong. He says the new office's practice will build on those in Shanghai and Hong Kong, such as capital markets, private equity and mergers and acquisitions.

"The next logical strategic initiative was to open in Beijing," he says.