February could be the new January for lateral recruits. The American Lawyer’s annual Lateral Report dropped on Feb. 1, the same day that marked a deluge of announcements by big firms touting new partner hires.
DLA Piper, which just forged a pan-Nordic practice by combining with Finnish firm Peltonen LMR and also shook up its non-U.S. compensation system, picked up corporate partner EMMA KENDALL in Brisbane this week from her role as managing legal counsel at Australian institutional investment manager QIC. Elsewhere in Oceania, DLA Piper recruited CAROLINE LABAND, a senior associate at leading New Zealand firm Russell McVeagh, as a partner for its insurance and commercial litigation group in Auckland. (DLA Phillips Fox, the Kiwi affiliate of the global legal giant, remains financial independent but adopted the DLA Piper brand last year.)
