Daily Diary

Friends like these

Posted 21/06/2007 by The Daily Diary

We are all familiar with the cosy ‘best friends’ arrangement between Slaughter and May and its fellow blue-bloods on the Continent.

However, Burges Salmon last week nudged the envelope an inch to the left after a missive from the firm hailed a new hire by its US “better friend” Thompson Hine. Whether the southwest firm was suggesting Thompson Hine is actually better than Slaughters’ buddies – or just that their relationship is that much closer – is a moot point.

Every firm has its own terms of endearment, of course, and with even Slaughters’ allies becoming ‘room-mates’ in London and Brussels it can only be a matter of time before Olswang starts calling Greenberg Traurig its ‘f**k-buddy’.

Incidentally, the Burges Salmon release was celebrating the appointment by Thompson Hine of corporate partner John Clapp from a US rival.

If only he was on secondment to Burges Salmon, The Diary would have been able to crowbar in a crude gag about Thompson Hine giving its ‘better friend’ the Clapp. But no such luck.