© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden, JD
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
The legal sands are shifting in the Middle East and North Africa for Texas firms.
Baker Botts announced Tuesday that 14 lawyers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh have joined the Houston-based firm, which now has 40 lawyers in its three Middle East offices.
The 14 lawyers, including eight partners, were previously with Fulbright & Jaworski and decided to leave as Fulbright implemented its joint venture with Norton Rose last month.
The Baker Botts announcement comes a week after Vinson & Elkins lost three of its key Middle East partners to Washington, D.C.-based Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Other law firms are reportedly re-examining their Middle East practices because those practices are costly to maintain but have proven less than profitable as Middle East-based clients have increasingly demanded increased services for significantly reduced rates.
Akin Gump, Baker Botts, Bracewell & Giuliani, Norton Rose Fulbright and V&E are Texas-based law firms with offices in the Middle East.
Legal experts say that the addition of the 14 lawyers clearly gives Baker Botts an advantage among U.S.-based law firms with a presence in MENA.
Leading the group is John Lonsberg, an international transactions and regulatory lawyer who established Fulbright’s practice in the Middle East in 2005 and served as the firm’s managing partner for the region. The 14 lawyers specialize in corporate and commercial transactions, regulatory and compliance, project finance, international arbitration and dispute resolution matters. The 14 lawyers and Baker Botts share a handful of clients, including Exxon Mobil and Halliburton.
“This team — considered ‘go-to’ choices for any business requiring legal counsel in the Middle East — has extensive experience in the region over a wide range of industry segments and practice areas that goes back for more than 30 years,” said Baker Botts Managing Partner Andrew Baker. “They are frequently referred to as ‘the region’s lawyers,’ and we are pleased to have them join the firm and our Middle East team.”
Baker also pointed out that the firm signed an alliance agreement earlier this year with the International Legal Group in Kuwait.
Van Beckwith, a Baker Botts partner in Dallas who leads the firm’s lateral recruiting efforts, said Lonsberg and Baker met in the mid-1990s while the two were on opposite sides of a M&A transaction. The duo stayed in touch for the better part of two decades.
“They reached out to Andy a few months ago and we put a sort of swat team together to evaluate the opportunity and pursue it,” said Beckwith. “One thing that impressed us was how involved they are in the region. These guys are doing a considerable amount of local work, representing Saudi Electric and a number of energy companies, sovereigns and wealth funds.”
Published reports contend that Norton Rose Fulbright made a major push to persuade Lonsberg and his group to stay and that the firm’s U.S. managing partner, Ken Stewart of Dallas, and a team flew to Dubai to meet with the team.
The Lonsberg group decided to leave, according to reports, because of significant disparities in their billable rates and the rates of their Norton Rose colleagues in the region. The Fulbright lawyers were charging considerably higher rates to the same clients.
Norton Rose Fulbright is not the only Texas firm to lose lawyers in the Middle East during the past couple weeks. Three V&E partners, including Ayman Khaleq, have announced they are joining Morgan Lewis to establish the D.C. firm’s first presence in MENA. V&E still have seven partners operating in the region.
Expect a lot more lateral moves during the next few months as law firms redefine their growth and practice strategies for the Middle East.
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