Lawyers

Trio of Partners Leave Locke Lord for Choate

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By Amanda Griffin

Posted on February 4, 2016

Summary: A group of three highly-ranked private equity partners have said goodbye to Locke Lord to join Choate Hall & Stewart.

Locke Lord LLP has lost three highly-ranked partners in their private equity group. Stephen Meredith, Christopher Nelson and Sarah Camougis have opted to leave the firm for Choate Hall & Stewart LLP. The departure of the trio is the first big exodus of this year from Locke Lord, which lost dozens of attorneys from their Boston office last year.

Meredith was the founder of Edwards & Angell LLP, which was one of Locke Lord’s predecessor firms. Nelson was the co-chair of the private equity and venture capital group at Locke Lord. Camougis co-chaired the technology, media, and telecommunications group.

Meredith stated of the move, “What we’re trying to achieve is taking two well-respected private equity practices and putting them together to really have a powerhouse in that area. The thought of 1 plus 1 equaling 4 or 5 is really what we were trying to achieve.”

Locke Lord, based in Texas, has been experiencing problems since entering the Boston market through a merger last year. The firm merged with struggling Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP in January only to have over 50 attorneys leave since the announcement of the merger. Before the merger, Edwards Wildman gave out more compensation to some partners than they had earned during the year, resulting in Locke Lord claiming that some of the ex-attorneys owed the firm money.

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Meredith clarified that the three did not leave the firm because of money issues. “With our particular group, compensation was not the driver of us deciding to join Choate. We’re much more focused on growing the practice larger, and letting compensation follow naturally from that,” said Meredith.

The private equity group at Choate is one of their strongest with over 50 lawyers of their 170 being part of the group and all working out of the one Boston office. The group has counseled mid-market companies for over $30 billion in transactions over the past five years.