A&O hit by Italy walkout as 17 join Gianni
Allen & Overy's (A&O's) Italian practice has suffered a mass walkout, with more than 20 lawyers quitting last month in moves unrelated to the firm's redundancy programme. Rome corporate partner Lorenzo Parola has become the third partner to quit A&O's Italian practice in a month, leaving to join Dewey & LeBoeuf at the end of April along with a team of at least two associates.
May 14, 2009 at 01:33 AM
2 minute read
More than 20 lawyers leave A&O; restructuring leads to 30 job cuts
Allen & Overy's (A&O's) Italian practice has suffered a mass walkout, with more than 20 lawyers quitting last month in moves unrelated to the firm's redundancy programme.
Rome corporate partner Lorenzo Parola has become the third partner to quit A&O's Italian practice in a month, leaving to join Dewey &
LeBoeuf at the end of April along with a team of at least two associates.
Meanwhile, around 17 associates have followed Italy environment and regulatory practice head Antonella Capria and litigation co-head Alberto Nanni to Gianni Origoni Grippo & Partners. It is understood that the entire Italian environmental team has chosen to leave with Capria.
News of the losses came in the same week that full details of A&O's restructuring programme in Italy became clear, with more than 30 lawyers in the country losing their jobs.
The firm laid off 30 associates across its Rome and Milan offices in March, with the corporate practice heavily affected. In addition, it is understood that three or four Italian partners, mainly from the corporate practice, have been asked to leave in July as part of the firm's restructuring.
A&O's Italian practice has faced a number of senior departures since losing Italian founding partner and corporate rainmaker Roberto Casati to US firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in 2004. Last year, it saw former corporate head Paolo Cerina leave for investment firm Babcock & Brown, while tax head Andrea Manganelli and Milan banking partner Davide Mencacci left the previous year.
One partner with a rival magic circle firm in Italy said: "I get the feeling A&O may choose to adapt their practice to the size of the market and focus on the areas where they are really a significant player, like banking and finance, capital markets and dispute resolution.
"In boom times a firm might choose to keep a large corporate practice but in a downturn the work tends to go to the heavyweight practices."
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