Andrew Reilly, Dirk Hamann, and Richard Ernest of Rimon. Courtesy photo

Alternative law firm Rimon has expanded in Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific in the first month of 2020 by making a trio of international hires from large law firms.

At the beginning of the year, the firm brought on Herbert Smith Freehills corporate partner Dirk Hamann in Berlin and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher banking and finance partner Richard Ernest in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. On Monday the firm announced another addition with the hire of Baker McKenzie capital markets attorney Andrew Reilly in Sydney. All three are opening offices for the cloud-based law firm, which launched in San Francisco in 2008, with Ernest pulling double-duty by leading the charge to open the firm's London office, which is awaiting regulatory approval.

"We're not kind of just playing around globally. We're going full speed ahead," said the firm's co-founding partner and CEO, Michael Moradzadeh. The moves follow office openings in Shenzhen, China; Warsaw, Poland; and Moscow in 2019, which built on the firm's prior presences in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Rome. The firm also has 21 locations in the United States, and Moradzadeh said the firm is currently in discussions to open in Madrid.

"We're not out here to try and be the biggest firm in the world or get the scraps of Big Law," said Moradzadeh, who added that the 105-lawyer firm grew head count by 47% last year. Moradzadeh said Rimon, which is pronounced "ree-mohn," wants to compete with the likes of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for work. "We see ourselves as white-shoe law firm 2.0," he said. 

Rimon co-founding partner and CEO Michael Moradzadeh.

Moradzadeh said the aim of the expansion is to serve clients including Fortune 100 companies and early-stage, midsize companies that have growing international legal needs and global clients looking to access the U.S. and its capital markets. Moradzadeh said the firm is focused on being a full-service firm for clients in high finance, high tech, entertainment, and the international corporate space.

Hamann in Berlin also practiced at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where he served for four years as the global co-head of the energy and natural resources sector group prior to joining Herbert Smith in 2014. He represents a variety of corporate and private equity clients as well as the German government and various government ministries—including in the long-running World Trade Organization dispute between the U.S. and EU over subsidies for Airbus. 

Hamann said in a phone interview that in the large law firms he previously practiced in, roughly 70% of revenue went toward firm overhead costs and 30% went to partners. "Rimon has turned this around," said Hamann, saying he expects to see a complete reversal of those figures at his new firm. That model is attractive to an established partner who has an established group of clients they serve as a trusted adviser, he said.

Hamann, who joined Rimon at the beginning of the year, said that nearly 100% of his clients have come with him and that his government clients, who have lengthy procurement processes to hire outside counsel, have asked his former firm to find arrangements to keep him involved in ongoing matters. "At the end of the day, the client decides who they're going with. No law firm can demand or insist on a certain client staying on board," Hamann said. 

Hamann, whose move has previously been reported by the German legal press, said that partners at other firms have reached out to him to discuss Rimon's model. "Now that Rimon is on the map in Germany, people are watching closely what is going on. Some of the experienced partners in some other firms are understanding that this is a good opportunity," he said. 

Ernest, who joins from Gibson Dunn in Dubai, describes his practice as "event-driven major private debt financings, including Islamic finance" on deals that are usually larger than $100 million. He says he tends to represent borrowers, including public companies, private equity funds, private investment funds and family offices, but he also does work for a few of the largest banks in the Middle East. He joined Gibson Dunn in February 2013 from the Abu Dhabi office of Clifford Chance, an office he helped establish in 2008. 

Responding to questions via email, Ernest said that he was attracted by the flexibility Rimon offered and "the chance to set up and build the evolved law practice in the U.K. and across the Middle East, whilst also supporting the awesome existing partners in Europe expand their own business and geographical reach."

"To me, it is clear that Rimon gives senior, experienced partners (20-plus years), who are seen by their clients as go-to practitioners, the chance to work freely, flexibly and collaboratively with like-minded souls in order to vastly improve upon the service and fee flexibility demanded by global clients," he said. Ernest, who has spent more than a dozen years in the United Arab Emirates, said he expects to spend more time in Dubai than London initially, as that is where his practice is focused.

Reilly in Australia has spent the past 13 years building a capital markets practice at Baker McKenzie, focusing on helping companies in Australia and New Zealand access international markets, particularly the U.S. Prior to his time at Baker McKenzie, the Southern California native was at Jones Day where he co-founded the firm's Sydney office in 1997.

Reilly said that where his move from Jones Day to Baker McKenzie took about eight months from beginning to end due to all the partners and committees he had to meet with as part of his vetting by the firm, the hiring process at Rimon took only about a month. "When you're a lawyer, you expect the demands and stresses that can be created by clients, but you don't appreciate the internal stresses" of large law firm bureaucracy, he said. Reilly said that although Rimon is actually structured as a corporation, and he's technically an employee who holds the title partner, it feels more like a partnership than his old firm. "I have greater autonomy to run the practice the way I want to run it," he said.

In an emailed statement, Anthony Foley, Baker McKenzie's Australia national managing partner, said the firm appreciated Reilly's 13 years of contributions and that he "departs with our best wishes for the future as he embarks on his next challenge." Foley noted that Baker McKenzie has U.S.-qualified lawyers in money centers around the globe and that its Australian capital markets group has recently worked on a number of large deals including Credit Corp Group's 125 million Australian dollars capital raising to fund the group's U.S. expansion.

A spokesperson at Gibson Dunn declined to comment on Ernest's departure and a Herbert Smith representative didn't respond to a message seeking comment on Hamann's move.

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