Clyde & Co has grown its Sydney office further with a 10-strong regulatory team, including two regulatory partners and four lawyers from Norton Rose Fulbright.
Michael Tooma and Alena Titterton are joining Clyde & Co as partners in Sydney. The pair’s practices focus on occupational, health, safety and security (OHSS) and have experience in sectors such as energy, gas, construction, infrastructure, mining, transport and rail.
They will also be joined by eight lawyers specialised in the same area including four from Norton Rose Fulbright.
Prior to the move, Tooma was Norton Rose Fulbright’s Asia Pacific head of OHSS and was also Australian head of the regulations and investigations practice. In his new role, Tooma will lead Clyde & Co’s OHSS practice across the Asia Pacific region.
It is the second raid on Norton Rose Fulbright by Clyde & Co in three months. In November 2015, it hired insurance partner Marcus O’Brien from Norton Rose Fulbright’s Melbourne office.
Clyde & Co’s Australia managing partner John Edmond said the OHSS capability was important and complementary to the firm’s existing practice areas and sectors, particularly in the aviation, construction and the oil and gas industries.
“We have an ambitious time frame in mind to establish a national occupational health and safety team,” said Edmond on the latest team hire.
At the end of 2015, Clyde & Co took on five partners from Australian boutique Lee & Lyons in Sydney along with more than 30 lawyers and staff, and hired shipping partner Andrew Gray in Singapore from Kennedys.
With the recent rounds of recruitment efforts, Clyde & Co’s partner number in Asia Pacific will increase by eight from 42 to 51 on 1 March 2016. 22 of the partners are based in Australia. However, in Asia, the firm lost its Indonesia practice head Michael Horn to DLA Piper in November 2015.