Only weeks out from the official integration of DLA Phillips Fox and DLA Piper, it has emerged that partners at the global firm will now be required to take three months ‘gardening leave’ when they resign.
According to The Lawyer the arrangement was approved via a partner vote in February, at the same time as the partners voted on the integration of DLA Phillips Fox. The new members’ agreement applies to the firm’s international LLP division across 28 countries excluding the US, and comes into force on 1 May, the same day as the official integration.
The members’ agreement was last rewritten more than 20 years ago. “As we’re only going to get bigger as a firm, we felt it was increasingly important to have a transparent and clear members’ agreement,” DLA Piper senior partner and board chairman, Janet Legrand, told The Lawyer.
“The changes to gardening leave and non-solicitation were about recognising that we’re now an institutional business and have institutional relationships, so we need to manage ¬ourselves in a different way. Before, a lot of our partners would have had a self-¬standing book of business.”
Since announcing the financial integration in late January DLA Phillips Fox has lost 12 partners to competing firms, including nine partners to Thomsons Lawyers in Brisbane, and one partner each to Moray & Agnew, Corrs Chambers Westgarth and TressCox Lawyers.
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TressCox hire takes DLA departures to 12 21 March 2011
Nine partners walk out of DLA Phillips Fox 14 March 2011