Accountancy giants boost legal with McDermott and RPC hires

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is bulking up its UK legal arm with a triple partner hire, with professional services rival Deloitte also extending its legal capacity.

PwC Legal has hired Beachcroft partner Stephen Gummer to head its employment team as well as hiring McDermott Will & Emery employment partner Vanessa Morgan. Both have resigned from their current firms and will join PwC Legal later this year. The hires will take the employment group to five partners, including Ed Stacey, who is joining from PwC's in-house legal team.

The firm is also bolstering its tax litigation capacity, with the hire of high profile partner Mark Whitehouse from Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC).

The partner hires are the latest in a series of moves by PwC Legal to expand and take the UK practice to 27 partners.

PwC Legal senior partner, Leon Flavell said: "We are pleased to be announcing the appointment of four extremely talented individuals. In line with current business growth, the firm has responded to demand by bringing on board the appropriate talent and expertise to meet client needs."

Separately, it has emerged that Deloitte has hired RPC tax litigation partner Fiona Walkinshaw. It is understood Walkinshaw could be overseeing a new tax litigation team for Deloitte.

KPMG, which used to operate the K-Legal network, said that it has no current plans to form a legal arm in preparation for the Legal Services Act but would not rule out such a move in the future.

RPC said: "We are sorry to see [Mark and Fiona] go their respective ways – they have both been popular, successful lawyers here, but they each concluded that their future lies with the accountancy majors and we wish them well.

"We are in the process of agreeing departure dates with Fiona and Mark and will be announcing how we plan to take forward our business in this area, which remains important to us."

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