It has been a busy month for the tax department at Shearman & Sterling. While the firm has lost a lawyer to the New York office of UK firm Lovell White Durrant, it has also taken a tax team from Paris firm Simeon & Associés.
Joseph Gruber has moved from Shearman & Sterling to become of counsel at Lovell White Durrant's New York Office. He will join Robert Ripin on the firm's capital markets desk, but will also support the firm's London operations.
Before moving to Lovell, Gruber spent two years with the Washington firm Steptoe & Johnson, and then five and a half years as a senior associate with Shearman & Sterling. He says that Lovell White Durrant has given him the opportunity to develop his own projects: "I'm my own boss here. At Shearman I was one of many. I'll get to roll my sleeves up and work with some really good people."
But despite the loss of Gruber from New York, Shearman & Sterling has bolstered its presence in France, taking an entire tax team from Simeon & Associés.
Partners Jacques Epstein, Cyrille Niedzielski and Jacques Wantz will specialize in cross-border M&A. They are accompanied by European counsel Bernard Carrez and nine associates.
Epstein says that the tax group at Simeon was reluctant to split up, and that the move had to be all or nothing. "It was better to keep the team together, and Shearman are so strong in corporate finance. The fit was perfect."
He admits that the loss will leave a hole in the Simeon tax office, but he is confident that it can be filled. And Epstein believes that the trend of French lawyers moving to US and UK firms can be put down to prestige. "Most French firms have existed for one or two generations, but many UK and US firms have been around for over a century."
