City firm brings in Squire Sanders partner for finance push as litigation trio depart

LG is expanding its finance practice through the hire of Squire Sanders Hammonds partner Iain Shurwood, with the addition coming as the UK firm prepares to lose a trio of litigation partners.

Shurwood will join LG next month, having been a partner at legacy Hammonds since 2008. He was previously a senior associate at Denton Wilde Sapte, which merged with US law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in September last year.

At LG, Shurwood, who specialises in corporate banking, acquisition and leveraged finance and advises borrowers, investors and lenders, will become the firm's seventh finance partner.

The hire comes as LG moves to strengthen its finance practice, which has won appointments to panels including Santander, Dunbar Bank and Nationwide Building Society in recent years.

LG head of banking Nick Turner (pictured) said: "We are very much growing the finance practice generally at the moment.  Iain's hire is designed to push us into more corporate banking work, get us acting for the lenders and grow our corporate banking portfolio."

The hire comes as three financial litigation partners hired by LG to help the firm target litigation work against banks prepare to leave for the London office of DLA Piper. Jeremy Andrews, Jean-Pierre Douglas-Henry and James Curle all handed in their notice earlier this month and are set to join DLA Piper after serving out 
a 
six-month notice period.

Douglas-Henry and Curle were part of a three-partner team that moved to LG from US firm Dorsey & Whitney in 2008, alongside litigation partner Thomas Ross, who left LG in February this year to join K&L Gates. Andrews joined LG as an associate in 2008 from Slaughter and May, becoming a partner in 2010.

The departures will leave LG with six partners in its City disputes practice, one of which focuses on bank litigation work, with two further partners taking on some financial disputes work.