Lloyds Banking Group has finally replaced its former general counsel for group legal, Hugh Pugsley, hiring Nathan Butler from the National Australia Bank.
Pugsley left Lloyds last April after just two years in the role to join HSBC as UK general counsel.
He had been parachuted into the Lloyds’ group legal job from his position as corporate and M&A head in late 2013 when former group legal general counsel Kate Cheetham was promoted to deputy general counsel.
Lloyds has had an interim group legal general counsel in place since Pugsley’s departure.
Butler is understood to have been appointed at the start of this year, relocating from Melbourne to London for the new job.
He has been general counsel for governance, corporate and enterprise services at National Australia Bank since 2013, first joining the bank in 2001.
Other roles he has held in the bank’s legal team include corporate general counsel, deputy chief general counsel and acting chief general counsel.
His arrival at Lloyds is the latest in a series of organisational changes and new senior appointments to its legal team.
The Lawyer revealed in March the bank was restructuring its legal team for the second time in a year, leading to job losses for junior lawyers. The exits follow an overhaul of the legal team last year that led to around 25 mid-level redundancies and the closure of its regional litigation teams.
Senior exits and appointments over the last 18 months include: the hire of former Linklaters managing partner Simon Davies as chief legal, people and strategy officer; the departure of litigation general counsel Michael Hartridge, who left for Harbour Litigation Funding; and the hire of Barclays head of legal for corporate banking Joanna Carver to lead the commercial banking legal team.
General counsel Kate Cheetham also stepped into the top job last year, succeeding Andrew Whittaker who had held the role for just two years.
The results of a recent internal staff survey of the Lloyds Bank legal team suggest the numerous changes could be leading to a lack of job satisfaction among staff.
Results of the survey, seen exclusively by The Lawyer, show a significant majority of both the commercial banking and lending support legal teams responded unfavourable to questions about satisfaction and engagement at work.