| Welcome to the first edition of our Bird & Bird Alumni Newsletter, designed to keep you up to date with news of your fellow Alumni and Bird & Bird.
Alumni networking event
On 6 November 2008 we held our first drinks reception to celebrate the launch of the UK Alumni Programme in London. We were pleased that a good number of you were able to come along both to the official drinks event and – in some cases – to The White Swan afterwards.
Alumni Profile: Iain Higgins
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Iain Higgins, formerly of Bird & Bird's Sports Group, is currently enjoying life in Dubai where he is working as the Company Lawyer for the International Cricket Council (the "ICC"), which is the international federation for the sport of cricket . He focuses sharply on governance and day-to-day regulatory issues such as anti-doping, anti-corruption, anti-racism and disciplinary matters but can also be asked to advise on a range of commercial matters, disputes and rights protection around some of the ICC-controlled events in 2009, such as the Women's World Cup, the World Cup Qualifiers, the Twenty20 World Cup and the Champion's Trophy 2009.
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Of course, the ICC is monitoring closely the fall-out from the allegations being made by the federal regulators in the US against Allen Stanford and his various banking institutions. Stanford has been a huge benefactor for the game of cricket in the West Indies and England (two of the ICC's Full Members) as well as a proponent of the Twenty20 format of the sport, and there are likely to be significant consequences to the sport of cricket across the world as more information comes to light and the matter is played out over the coming months.
Iain comments "The work is certainly varied, and no two days are ever the same. In the past few days alone, I've been asked to advise on matters as diverse as a cricketer using a revolutionary 'double –bladed' bat in Australia to the abandoned Test match in Antigua; from a breach of the Code of Conduct by the Afghanistan captain in the World Cup Qualifiers in Argentina to the prosecution of a Pakistani fast-bowler in India for the commission of an anti-doping offence during the Indian Premier League."
Whilst it has been relatively easy to settle in the sun-drenched tax-haven of Dubai, Iain tells us that he genuinely misses his former colleagues at Bird & Bird. He continues to keep close ties with many, especially those in the Sports Group who he has already instructed on anti-doping and anti-corruption matters and anticipates requiring further assistance on anti-ambush matters concerning the ICC's 'trophy' event in June 2009, the Twenty20 World Cup.
"Working in-house at the ICC is certainly exciting and brings a new set of challenges", Iain concludes, " on a daily basis I'm called on to provide advice that reflects the immediate commercial needs of the organisation and I'm much more directly involved with the central decision-making side of the business." |
Your interests... (tell us more?)
When you joined our programme, we gave you the option to tell us what your interests are so that we could tell you about relevant events or publications. For information about forthcoming events and publications, see our website. If you'd like to provide or update your details, click here.
Contract Law Alerter
We have just launched a new Contract Law Alerter produced by Andrew White and his team. The contributions come from lawyers working in a range of sectors, and focus on key contractual issues. Email us at alumni@twobirds.com to be added to the mailing list (NB, this is only available to alumni who are in-house).
For information about the UK Alumni programme, including an upcoming event for alumni of our IP department, see our website.
News from Bird & Bird
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RollonFriday Award
We were delighted to win RollOnFriday's Law Firm of The Year award in 2008. As you are no doubt aware, RollOnFriday is a website which provides news, views and light-hearted gossip on the legal profession.
This award is voted for by lawyers themselves, so it is encouraging to hear that we are seen as a great place to work with a good work/life balance.
www.rollonfriday.com/story1080.htm |
International Expansion
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Bird & Bird won the coveted "International Law Firm of the Year" award at The Lawyer Awards in June 2008 after a busy year that saw us open up an office in Helsinki, following a merger with Fennica Attorneys Limited, and launch of Indian and Central European practices, which enabled us to expand our reach into important new geographic markets.
Since receiving this award, we have expanded even further and opened new offices in Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, Shanghai and Warsaw. We have also merged with London law firm Lane & Partners and entered into a global association with leading Singapore law firm ATMD. We now have 21 offices across Europe and Asia. |
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South East Asia: Last October, we launched a small office in Shanghai which will focus on corporate, commercial and IP work. Then in January 2009 we entered into a global association with Alban Tay Mahtani & De Silva LLP (ATMD) – one of Singapore's leading law firms with over 30 lawyers. ATMD is currently associated with Tay & Partners in Malaysia and this relationship continues, though Tay and Partners operates as an independent firm. Our Singapore office is known as ATMD Bird & Bird LLP.
London: Our merger with Lane & Partners LLP in October 2008 means we now have a combined team of over 100 contentious lawyers in London alone. Our new colleagues - 30 lawyers in all - have expertise in many sectors including aviation, travel, art, construction, engineering and utilities and are known for their mid-market corporate work.
Central & Eastern Europe: Having launched a Central European desk earlier in the year, last September we opened four new offices in the region – Czech Republic (Prague), Poland (Warsaw), Hungary (Budapest) and Slovakia (Bratislava). In addition, we also entered into an association agreement with leading Polish firm Grynhoff Woźny Maliński which specialises in commercial law and is particularly strong in IT and telecoms.
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