Partner-in-chief of London's Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue office moves to Allen & Overy...
...to become a tax partner
On April 30, Stephen Fiamma will leave his position as partner-in-chief of the London office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue and will join Allen & Overy as a tax partner. Robert Thomson, an English lawyer and former head of litigation at Jones, Day, will take over as partner-in-chief at the US firm's London office.
Commenting on the reasons for his move, Fiamma said: "I'd begun to take stock of my life and realized that my role as manager and lawyer meant that I hadn't had one full day off in 10 years. So when Allen & Overy approached me, it seemed a very natural choice." Fiamma explains that his position at Jones, Day has been a question of getting the balance right between managing the firm and practising law: "We like to say that we are blue-collar lawyers. All of us are expected to carry out a full load of work. Even in my position I still billed for 2000 hours this year." But his role's administrative responsibilities created more work for Fiamma. He explains how his management role was divided into three areas: deciding on the strategic direction of the office; recruiting; and what he terms as: "selling the London office to our US clients and our English counterparts. Our clients are mostly US-based so it has involved spending a vast amount of time over there."
Many of the London offices of US firms, such as Weil Gotshal & Manges and McDermott Will & Emery, have English managing partners. As Jones Day follows suit, Fiamma explains how the nature of US clients' demands has changed over the last 10 years: "When I arrived in London, there was a huge market for American lawyers because our clients welcomed an intermediary. But that no longer exists at all. Now that so many US businesses have been expanding into international markets, they have been dealing with the English more and are now comfortable going directly to the source."
Mike Francis, managing partner of Weil Gotshal & Manges expands: "I believe that it is a natural progression of US law firms in London offices to become more English, and therefore that an Englishman should take over."
Peter Nias, tax partner at the London office of US firm McDermott Will & Emery, agrees with Fiamma. Commenting on why there are now so few Americans in his office, he says: "Although there is no official policy, it is a reflection of how we view ourselves. We work closely with US lawyers but we do not wish our office to be seen as joined by an umbilical cord to them."
Nevertheless, Fiamma views the total exclusion of American lawyers as a radical and unnecessary move: "Where we add value is in the mix of nationalities, which many English firms cannot offer." He adds: "When our firm first opened in London as Jones Day in 1986, we saw our realistic strategy as being to capitalize on the US clients knocking on our door. Through them, we built a reputation in order to attract English lawyers to join our office. And it is working." Recently, Jones, Day recruited Peter Faber from Simmons & Simmons, Daljit Singh from Hammond Suddards, and John Clark from Theodore Goddard.
When Fiamma leaves, none of the eight remaining partners at the firm will be American by birth. At Allen & Overy he will be working with about 80 tax practitioners and between 80 and 90 US lawyers, most of whom are based in London. He will be one of three US tax practitioners, although the other two are based in New York: "But I expect we will be hiring more junior positions in order to expand this area."
Commenting on the move, Robert Thomson says: "I believe Stephen Fiamma is moving because he wants a change. I did the same thing when I was managing partner of Denton Hall in Hong Kong and decided to return to their London office as a litigation partner." He joined Jones, Day in January 1997.
On his choice to move from a US to a UK firm, Fiamma explains: "I've been in England for 16 years now. I preferred the idea of going to an English firm rather than having to explain to a US head office the reasons for my actions over here."
