High-caliber lawyers boost Baker Botts’ Mideast portfolio

A highly-regarded group of lawyers with accumulated experience of more than a century of practice in the GCC, including eight partners who specialize in a wide range of transactional and dispute matters, recently joined Baker Botts LLP. The lawyers will work from firm offices in Riyadh, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
“This group of talented and experienced lawyers will cement our position as one of the dominant legal forces in the region,” said Robert Jordan, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and partner in charge of the firm’s Middle East practice. “This team significantly enhances our ongoing efforts to build a broad portfolio of capabilities in the Middle East in order to help clients address the growing demand for sophisticated legal services on a wide of array of complex issues.”
The Middle East group — a total of 14 lawyers and a significant number of support staff — moved to the firm from Norton Rose Fulbright. It includes John Lonsberg, who established Fulbright & Jaworski’s presence in the Middle East when he joined Fulbright in 2005 and served as the partner in charge of that firm’s Middle East practice; fellow partners Sam Eversman in Riyadh; Mark Bisch, Jonathan Sutcliffe, Joseph Colagiovanni, Hassan Elsayed, Richard Devine and Philip Punwar in Dubai.
Lonsberg said: “I knew the firm was interested in growing its platform and practices, and I saw our team’s 30 years presence in the Middle East as a full complement to what Baker Botts has developed here in recent years.”
The move, along with the alliance agreement signed with the International Legal Group in Kuwait earlier this year, enhances Baker Botts’ reputation as a significant legal force in the region and allows the firm to provide an even broader range of service and capabilities to clients. This includes providing extensive counsel to foreign companies active in Kuwait and the UAE or Kuwait- and UAE-based companies active internationally.