DLA Piper partner trio exit for rival US firms' City arms

DLA Piper is set to see a trio of high-profile partner departures, with its global co-head of litigation, its EMEA head of corporate crime and investigations and its EMEA private equity head all leaving for rival US law firms. Joint global litigation chief Neil Gerrard and EMEA corporate crime head Jonathan Pickworth are both leaving to join Dechert in London, while EMEA private equity chief Will Rosen is to join the City arm of Ropes & Gray.

April 05, 2011 at 01:40 AM

3 minute read

By Simon Petersen

Joint global litigation chief Neil Gerrard and EMEA corporate crime head Jonathan Pickworth are both leaving to join Dechert in London, while EMEA private equity chief Will Rosen is to join the City arm of Ropes & Gray.

Gerrard and Pickworth both handed in their notice last week to join Dechert, with the firm also understood to be in talks with additional DLA partners.

Gerrard has co-led DLA Piper's litigation group since the three-way merger in January 2005 between DLA, Piper Rudnick and Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich. Andrew Darwin, managing director of DLA Piper Europe, will act in his role until the firm decides on a replacement.

Meanwhile, Rosen, who joined DLA Piper in 2008 from Weil Gotshal & Manges, is set to join Ropes & Gray in June, with the hire coming after last month's appointments of DLA Piper corporate partner Kiran Shama and Jones Day private equity partner Peter Baldwin to Ropes' London arm. Including Rosen and the planned relocation of Boston private equity partner Bill Mone, Ropes will have 12 partners in London by this summer.

DLA Piper saw its previous EMEA private equity head Andrew Harris leave to oversee Kaye Scholer in July last year, with fellow private equity partner Sean Scanlon leaving four months later. The firm is undecided as to whether it will appoint a replacement for Rosen in the private equity chief role.

Commenting on the departures, one ex-DLA Piper partner said: "Gerrard is surprising because he was in the inner sanctum and Will Rosen is interesting because he wasn't there for long. Sean Scanlon and Andrew Harris left the firm last year, so perhaps he was just feeling a bit isolated. Either that or he was offered a lot more money."

In a statement, Darwin said: "DLA Piper's litigation and regulatory business has more than 300 partners globally and is sufficiently resilient to be able to cope with management changes. We have a strong leadership team and fully expect that the performance of this business, and the services we offer to our clients, will be unaffected."

Dechert declined to comment.