How Clifford Chance Intends to Rebuild Decimated NYC Litigation Team
When Juan Morillo joined Clifford Chance from Sidley Austin, he didn’t expect to be named the head of the international megafirm’s United States litigation practice within the next two years.
But now a deluge of partner departures has given the 40-year-old Morillo, who practices out of the London-based law firm’s Washington, D.C., office, the chance to show his stuff. Amongst the challenges he is facing is the decimation of the firm’s New York litigation group. It is now down to 10 lawyers—“two of whom reportedly were shown the door,” reports the Am Law Daily, citing an unidentified source.
Among the most recent to leave the firm were three partners—including former global litigation head Mark Kirsch—who joined Gibson Dunn & Crutcher earlier this month, as their new firm trumpeted in a press release.
Clifford Chance is committed to rebuilding its litigation team in New York, Morillo tells the Am Law Daily, and he is actively interviewing potential litigation partners for the office there. At least in the short run, however, the firm apparently intends to bolster its New York litigation group by making the New York litigators, as Morillo puts it, “more aligned” with their Washington counterparts.
“There’s no metric in terms of revenue or size for New York,” Morillo says. “We just want to make sure it’s fully integrated with Washington and that it performs on par with the rest of the firm and plays to the firm’s strengths.”
He tells Legal Week, which says that the New York litigation team is now down to four partners, that the firm’s U.S. litigation practice needed to “turn a new page” to build on the firm’s global competitive strengths.
“We are now focusing on those areas such as cross-border criminal, regulatory and litigation matters and domestic areas such as white-collar and antitrust in which we have a competitive advantage,” he tells the legal publication.
Related earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Clifford Chance Loses Global Litigation Chief, Mulls More NY Lawyer Layoffs”
ABAJournal.com: “Clifford Chance May Lose #1 Spot, as Revenue Drops 5% to $2.04B”
