A Changing London Landscape for U.S. JDs

As a former associate with Cleary Gottlieb’s Paris office and a Senior Director heading up Lateral Link’s London and Paris recruiting practices, I have been working with U.S. lawyers looking to move to Europe for the last 15 years.

In 2014, Above the Law published my series on Planning for a Legal Career Overseas (Part I and Part II) that outlines your best route for moving overseas as a U.S. JD. I stress the importance of working in the capital markets space if you are committed to working overseas. This still holds true for Paris and other European financial centers: Frankfurt and Milan, for example. But over the last few years, we’ve seen a decline in opportunities for U.S. capital markets lawyers in London and an uptick in opportunities for U.S. JDs trained in M&A (on the private equity side) and emerging companies work (venture capital, technology transactions, privacy, etc.)

Why this shift? Ever since Brexit became a certainty, hiring for U.S. capital markets in London has been slow. Firms were still sending their own associates on overseas rotations, but the lateral market all but dried up. But with the boom in private equity and emerging companies work recently, firms are realizing they can use this (U.S.-qualified) expertise in other time zones.

I am currently working with two top international firms, assisting them in finding solid mid-level to senior U.S. JD associates:

  • with M&A, capital markets, or venture capital experience for a top emerging companies practice, and
  • for a Chambers Band 1 global M&A (primarily private equity) practice.

Capital markets associates, hang on! There will inevitably be more openings in London soon. Capital markets can only be booming in the U.S. for so long without some of that need crossing the pond. But this new diversity in practice areas in London that U.S. lawyers can aspire to is exciting!

If you are a U.S. JD with a top firm and curious about opportunities in London, Paris or elsewhere in Europe — now or planning for down the road — please reach out to me at agordon@laterallink.com and we’ll discuss!


Abby Gordon

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. This post is by Abby Gordon, Senior Director at Lateral Link, who works with attorney candidates on law firm and in-house searches, primarily in Boston, New York, and Europe. Prior to joining Lateral Link, Abby spent seven years as a corporate associate with Cleary Gottlieb, focusing on capital markets transactions for Latin American clients in New York and for the last five years for European clients in Paris. A native of Boston, Abby holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in government and romance languages, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College. Abby also worked with the International Rescue Committee as a Fulbright Scholar in Madrid, Spain. She is a member of the New York, Massachusetts and Maine Bars and is fluent in French and Spanish (and dabbles in Portuguese and Italian). You can view additional articles by Abby here.


Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices worldwide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click here to find out more about us.

Ropes & Gray Sweetens Office Reopening With Free Food

Several law firms have already announced plans for the reopening of their offices. At most of them — and for the handful of firms doing soft openings this summer — between now and September, offices will be open for voluntary, optional use so that lawyers and staff members can casually reacquaint themselves with in-person law firm life. As we know all too well, after more than a year of working remotely, some employees aren’t exactly eager to return to the office; in fact, they may be dreading it.

What could make the situation a little more palatable? Free food, and lots of it.

That’s exactly what will be happening at Ropes & Gray — the Biglaw firm that was first to officially end the five-day, in-office workweek for associates. According to a source, the firm will be providing complimentary breakfast, lunch, and snacks every day of the week from the day after Memorial Day through Labor Day for all lawyers and staffers as part of its office return plans. Eva Ciko Carman, managing partner of the firm’s New York office, announced the news this week:

If you choose to come into the office, the firm would like to welcome you back with complimentary breakfast and lunch, prepared by Flik. That’s right: Free food for anyone in the office. …

[I]f you’re comfortable coming into the office, we hope that this will be a nice treat.

The free meals will be offered in all of the firm’s U.S. offices, as well as the firm’s London office. Employees will be treated to an array of standard breakfast fare (sandwiches, eggs, bagels, muffins, fruit, and yogurt) and for lunch, there will be a variety of salads, sandwiches, burgers, and desserts (ranging from cookies to fruit).

If you’d like to encourage your lawyers and support teams to return to the office voluntarily, why not make it a little more delicious? Kudos to Ropes & Gray for sweetening the idea of returning to the office.

(Flip to the next page to see the full memo from Ropes & Gray.)

What has your firm announced as far as a reopening plan is concerned? The more information is out there, the more likely it is that firms will be able to establish a market standard for a return to work.

As soon as you find out about reopening plans at your firm, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Office Reopening”) or text us at (646) 820-8477. We always keep our sources on stories anonymous. There’s no need to send a memo (if one exists) using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. If a memo has been circulated, please be sure to include it as proof; we like to post complete memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file. Thanks.


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

A Biglaw Firm That Really Cares

Listen, I am surprised as anyone. When I sat down to interview Jenner & Block’s Co-Managing Partners Katya Jestin and Randy Mehrberg, I hardly anticipated being wowed by the firm’s dedication to social justice and pro bono representations, but here we are.

In this episode of The Jabot, I chat with Katya and Randy about their overall philosophy for managing a Biglaw firm, prioritizing diversity, the challenges in trying to create a unified culture across a giant firm and how has the pandemic heightened those issues. We also talk about Jenner & Block’s representation of Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight Action and the need to modernize the Voting Rights Act.

The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wore when delivering dissents from the bench. It’s a reminder that even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Happy listening!


headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

SPAC To Merge With SPAC That Merged With Spinoff From Company The First SPAC Is Merging With

Most people have been “analyzing” blank-check companies for about a year now, perhaps a little more. Not so Neil Danics. The man behind a company called “SPAC Analytics” has actually been digging into the things for 14 years, and even he’s taken aback by pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences’ plan to go public via blank-check merger. “In the years I’ve been analyzing SPACs, I’ve never seen a transaction like this,” he said.

Morning Docket: 05.21.21

* Hershey has a new general counsel. Hope his compensation package is “sweet”… [Reuters]

* A celebrity lawyer, who represented the late DMX, has listed his New York City duplex for sale. [New York Post]

* A Texas judge has refused to move a lawsuit against Google from Texas to California. Should be fine, a lot of tech companies are moving to Texas these days anyways… [Reuters]

* A Brooklyn lawyer has pleaded guilty to running a $6 million real estate scam. [Patch]

* Bacardi has won a lawsuit against a former distributor. To celebrate, maybe they should sip Bacardi like it’s their birthday… [Spirits Business]


Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

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LawNext: How Law Schools Should Teach Tech, With April Dawson

There is broad agreement that if law schools are to adequately train students for careers in law, then technology is a critical part of the curriculum. Despite this, many law schools get a failing grade when it comes to teaching tech. So how, exactly, should law schools teach tech? And what topics should such teaching cover?

April G. Dawson has given a lot of thought to those questions.A former computer programmer and litigator, she is now associate dean of technology and innovation and professor of law at North Carolina Central University School of Law, where her research focuses on legal pedagogy, the use of technology in legal education, and law and technology.

Recipient of the 2021 Technology, Law and Legal Education Section Award.from the Association of American Law Schools, she has written and spoken about how to design legal technology courses and who should teach them, most recently at the American Bar Association’s 2021 Techshow. She also speaks on how law school faculty can use tech to better engage with students and enhance their own productivity.

In this episode of LawNext, Dawson shares her insights on why it is important for law schools to teach technology and how they should design and implement tech instruction.

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