Hogan Lovells creates ‘One Americas’ practice region

Hogan Lovells is making a series of changes to its practice group structure and the leadership of its international management committee, and which include combining its Washington, DC and Americas regions under a single Americas practice.

These changes take effect from 1 July 2020 under the leadership of the new incoming CEO Miguel Zaldivar and Deputy CEO Michael Davison. The March-April issue of The Latin American Lawyer features an interview with Miguel Zaldívar, and which can be downloaded for free here.

The firm’s regions will shift from five to three. The firm’s current Americas and D.C. regions will be combined into a single region. The firm is also creating a single Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region which combines its existing UK and Africa region with Continental Europe and its offices in the Middle East. The current Asia Pacific and Middle East region will focus on the emergent markets of Southeast Asia as well as the established economies of Australia, Greater China, and Japan.

Zaldivar commented: “Having a ‘One Americas’ region will enable us to more easily take a holistic and integrated approach to sharing clients, work, investments, and resources.

We have already adopted the same approach very successfully with our offices in Germany and Greater China. Having a single EMEA region is an approach taken by many of our clients and competitors, and reflective of the economic and social ties in that part of the world as well as time zone and geographical proximity.”

The firm’s practice groups will also shift from five to three. The corporate and finance practice groups will be combined to create a new corporate and finance practice made up of around 400 partners. Hogan Lovells will also more closely align its global regulatory and IPMT practice groups and put them together under one umbrella, global regulatory & IPMT, comprising around 230 partners.

According to a statement by Miguel Zaldivar (pictured), “We are uniquely placed as a fully-integrated global firm. We have a high-quality business, great clients, genuine international reach, and extremely talented people. The combination of our industry sector knowledge and our market-leading position at the meeting point between business and government is admired by clients and competitors alike. These are the strengths on which we are building our firm.”

“I set out my priorities in December as being: client service; investment in our key markets; incentivizing even more collaboration across the partnership; managing our profitability; and supporting citizenship, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability. The changes to our structures help achieve those priorities by bringing increased speed and efficiency to our management decision-making, continuing the work which Steve Immelt started in 2014 in moving from co-leaders to single leaders,” he said.

He continued: “I have tried to ensure continuity of leadership while prioritizing bringing on a new and diverse generation of leaders.”

“There is already a significant amount of overlap between corporate and finance, particularly in the capital markets space as well as in areas such as joint ventures, M&A, and commercial work. Bringing them together creates a powerful force for our clients,” Zaldívar said.

“With global regulatory and IPMT there are already synergies between them in areas such as privacy and cybersecurity; pharmaceutical and technology patent litigation; and antitrust investigations. Both are also top-rated practices groups in their own right in the market and we will protect those positions in terms of how we go to market.”