Paul Friedman Named as One of The Lawyer’s 2022 “Hot 100” London Attorneys

The Lawyer has named Morrison & Foerster’s Managing Partner for Europe Paul Friedman to its 2022 “Hot 100” list. The annual list celebrates a diverse mix of top London-based attorneys who stand out for their “excellence” and “relevance.”

The UK-based magazine has recognized Paul for his leadership of the London office, with 2021 marking the sixth year of consecutive, transformative growth for the office.

In its profile, The Lawyer commends Paul for being “at the helm of MoFo’s growth plan, leading on key hires and practice area expansion in a bid to propel the firm onto bigger and better cross-border mandates,” and highlights the “rip-roaring results from Morrison & Foerster’s London office.”

Paul was named Morrison & Foerster’s inaugural Managing Partner for Europe in late 2014, which led him to relocate to London. In this role, he has been responsible for developing and implementing a growth strategy for the region and enhancing coordination among the firm’s London, Brussels, and Berlin offices with the firm’s other offices throughout the United States and Asia.

During Paul’s tenure, the London office has grown to almost 100 lawyers and 150 total employees with busy teams advising on market-leading deals and high-profile investigations, and disputes and data privacy matters. Some of these recent high-profile matters include:

• Representing a client in connection with a high-profile government inquiry, and various related matters arising out of a High Court decision in a long-running group litigation;
• Advising SoftBank, along with many other matters, in connection with the US$40 billion sale of UK-headquartered multinational semiconductor and software design company Arm to NVIDIA;
•  Advising in connection with a take-private debt financing for Morrisons by a consortium led by Fortress—one of the two major offers ($6.7 billion) in the bidding war for the UK supermarket chain; and
• Representing the official committee of unsecured creditors of Valaris Plc and its affiliated debtors in their chapter 11 cases and parallel UK administration proceeding.