Linklaters

Linklaters hired César Rivière (partner), Grant May (counsel), and Cara Day (associate) from Paul Weiss to expand U.S. litigation and sports practices during period of U.S. revenue and profit growth.

Leadership read: Linklaters is resourcing ahead of a step-change, not backfilling. A build-out like this concentrates senior bench strength in the sector where the mandate is strongest. Watch the mix of the hires across Americas; that is the clearest read on the plan behind the headcount.

curated · 2026-08-15 · context →

Linklaters aggressively expanding US presence with doubled US revenue and quadrupled profit over 4 years; opened new offices in Shanghai and Singapore; US partnership grown to ~55 partners

Leadership read: Linklaters' geographic footprint move carries more operational weight than the headline revenue numbers. Opening simultaneously in Shanghai and Singapore, while sustaining a four-year US build that has now reached roughly 55 partners, commits the firm to managing three distinct practice cultures, three regulatory environments, and three partner compensation expectations within a single profit pool. That is a structurally different management problem than running a London-anchored network with outposts. The lateral hire pace (12 partner laterals across global offices in one year) compounds this: integration velocity at that rate requires dedicated cross-office practice leadership, not just a managing partner making quarterly visits. This is one of twelve geographic expansion signals we have tracked across sectors in the last 90 days, though the Linklaters move is the only professional-services example in the set; comparable signals skew toward retail and consumer (Fabletics, BODYBAR Pilates, Madewell) and logistics-adjacent categories. That makes direct pattern comparison limited. Within professional services specifically, the relevant context is the sustained Magic Circle push into the US corridor, where Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy have run comparable US build-outs over the same period, each generating lateral-partner competition and practice-integration friction. Across law firms and professional-services platforms reaching this scale of simultaneous multi-geography build, the functional pressure concentrates in two areas: cross-border practice management leadership capable of holding culture and standards across jurisdictions, and business development operations leadership with the commercial architecture to align pricing, client-team deployment, and AI-tooling rollout across offices that were not designed together.

curated · 2026-07-21 · context →

Magic circle law firm Linklaters recruited two senior partners (Christopher Boehning as Chair of global sports practice and Daniel Levi in litigation/arbitration) from Paul Weiss to strengthen US market presence and sports law capabilities. Partner headcount up 77% since 2022 (now 55 partners).

Leadership read: Recruiting two partners who have functioned as FIFA's primary US legal counsel is not a capability add; it is a client-relationship acquisition. Boehning and Levi carry with them years of institutional trust with one of the most litigious and politically complex governing bodies in global sport. That relationship is now sitting inside a firm whose sports client roster already spans the Premier League, NFL Players Association, and DAZN. Linklaters has committed itself to running a genuinely integrated global sports practice anchored in New York, which is operationally different from having US-based partners who happen to advise sports clients. The 77% partner headcount increase since 2022 makes clear this is a sustained build, not opportunistic lateral hiring. The related-signals set for this period is broad across sectors and does not offer close legal-market comparables; the more relevant peer signal is Freshfields simultaneously restructuring its own partner base to fund US expansion, and Paul Hastings launching a new global sports practice with lateral hires from across the market. That makes at least three Magic Circle or major international firms visibly repositioning their US sports and disputes capabilities within a 90-day window. The pattern is concentrated enough to read as a category-wide recognition that sports law has crossed a threshold: private equity capital flow into clubs, leagues, and media rights has made the work large-ticket and cross-jurisdictional enough to warrant dedicated practice infrastructure. Across firms competing in this corridor, the functional pressure concentrates in a specific cluster: regulatory and governance counsel with international sports-body experience, cross-border disputes leadership at the intersection of commercial arbitration and public law, and commercial partners able to convert deep client relationships into multi-matter mandates rather than single-case retainers.

curated · 2026-07-14 · context →