Four more partners have left Bingham McCutchen for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld amid merger talks between the Boston-headquartered firm and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
The new joiners include corporate partner Vance Chapman and funds partners Thomas Holton and Thiha Tun, who will be based in Akin Gump’s London office, as well as corporate partner Matthew Puhar who will join the Hong Kong office.
The moves come less than a week after Akin Gump announced that 22 partners are leaving Bingham to join the firm’s offices in London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. The partners, who were from the firm’s marquee restructuring practice and other practice groups, left partly because they did not agree with the plans to merge with Morgan Lewis, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The 22-partner departing group includes London-based James Roome, the co-chair of Bingham’s global financial restructuring group, a member of the firm’s executive board and managing partner of the firm’s London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong offices.
In Asia, two partners – corporate lawyer Charles Rogers and restructuring specialist Naomi Moore – will join Akin Gump’s office in Hong Kong.
For the past several months, Bingham, with approximately 750 lawyers, has been in search of a merger partner after revenue fell in 2013 and partners defected. Talks with Morgan Lewis have been going on at least since July.
On Sep. 22, Reuters reported that leaders of Bingham McCutchen and Morgan Lewis had agreed to merge, citing three people familiar with the matter.
The combination would create one of the top five largest law firms in the world, with more than 2,000 lawyers and $2 billion in revenue, Reuters reported.
