Dewey Almaty Office to Follow Moscow to Morgan Lewis

Dewey & LeBoeuf‘s 13-lawyer Kazakhstan office is set to follow the firm’s Moscow base to Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, The Am Law Daily has learned.

Although neither group has formally resigned from the embattled U.S. firm, the seven equity partners—Oleg Berger, Carter Brod, Jonathan Hines, Vasilisa Strizh, Brian Zimbler, and Roman Dashko in Moscow, and Almaty managing partner Aset Shyngyssov—have all agreed to join Morgan Lewis in principle.

The partners are currently finalizing the terms of their departure with Dewey’s management team, according to a Dewey partner with knowledge of the situation, and expect to have a deal in place by early next week. Morgan Lewis will then extend its offer to all other partners, lawyers, and support staff at each office, this source says.

Before deciding to join Morgan Lewis, Dewey’s Moscow office held talks with King & Spalding; McDermott Will & Emery; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; and Winston & Strawn. The Moscow team is now attempting to negotiate a transfer that will allow it to remain in its new offices, which it moved into this April having spent “several million dollars” fitting out the new space, according to a source familiar with the move. (None of the firms responded to immediate requests for comment.)

Morgan Lewis does not currently have a presence in either Russia or Kazakhstan, but shares a number of clients with the Dewey team, including Norwegian energy company Statoil, a key client of Dewey Moscow oil and gas head Hines.

In jumping to Morgan Lewis, the group joins former London-based Dewey partners Nick Greenwood, Amanda Jennings, Bruce Johnston—who rescinded his acceptance of an offer from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld —to make the move alongside his colleagues Peter Sharp and David Waldron.