Anna Rogers and Chris Mullen announce the launch of Arc Pensions Law – covered in The Lawyer
Former Pinsent Masons senior partner Chris Mullen and former Mayer Brown partner Anna Rogers have opened a new pension boutique, trading as Arc Pensions Law.
Mullen acted as senior partner at Pinsent Masons for nine years before losing the position to Richard Foley in the firm’s leadership election last year (30 June 2014). Mullen will now work as Arc’s managing partner.
Rogers is the current chairman of the Association of Pension Lawyers and was previously a pensions partner at Mayer Brown. She will hold the position of senior partner.
Mullen is the third partner this week to leave his firm after losing a leadership election. Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) head of corporate David Collins resigned after missing out on becoming the firm’s managing partner (8 June 2015). Collins stood against Lisa Mayhew who took up the role on 1 May (13 February 2015).
Meanwhile Herbert Smith Freehills’ former senior partner Mark Crean is leaving for Jones Day (11 June 2015), after losing a senior partner election to James Palmer last year (10 November 2014).
Arc will target employers, trustees and law firms that do not have their own dedicated pensions capability and require specialist support. It will focus on providing advice around compliance and trustee work, liability management, bulk annuity purchase, safe settlement on winding up and corporate advisory issues.
Due to the decline of final salary and defined benefits schemes employers are being forced to change the pensions they offer. Mullen said that the legal services pension market is buoyant as a result of the change of pension regulation.
Mullen said: “There are rafts of pensions schemes that don’t have appointed legal advisers and that may never have appointed a lawyer but are going to need legal advice in the coming years.
“So we think it’s a very good time to launch a boutique dedicated to the requirements of pension schemes and those employers which sponsor pension schemes.”
When Arc launches on 11 June the team will consist of Mullen and Rogers and a former Mayer Brown associate.
Talks are currently under way to add another partner to Arc’s ranks by the end of the year. This growth is expected to continue and the firm aims to increase its partnership to six by the end of its first full trading year.
Mullen said: “Our aim is to become within fairly short order a top 20 pensions practice and actually to become a top 20 practice you only need five or six partners.”
Read the original article in The Lawyer here.
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