DLA Piper Lengthens Managing Partner Term, Citing COVID-19

Simon Levine

DLA Piper has extended the current term of its global co-CEO and managing partner by two years through 2024 in a bid to provide "surety" for the firm and its clients, the firm announced Monday.

Simon Levine, who is based in London and was set to be term-limited out on Dec. 31, 2022, will stay on longer at the recommendation of the firm's board "to ensure stability and certainty of leadership during these uncertain times," the firm said in a statement.

"We felt strongly that by extending Simon's leadership until 2024, we would be best placed to manage the challenges caused by the pandemic, while also ensuring the strategic objectives of the firm are met," Andrew Darwin, the global co-chair of the firm, said in a statement. "We have been on an incredible journey under Simon's leadership and with the business in robust and resilient shape, are well positioned to help our clients succeed through the unsettling times before us and the road ahead."

Levine, a Cambridge-educated solicitor specializing in intellectual property law with a focus on media, sports and entertainment, joined the firm in 2012 as a partner and head of the intellectual property practice group for Europe, Africa and Asia. He assumed the role of global CEO in 2015 and was re-elected by the firm's partners, beginning his second term in 2018. The firm usually limits its chief executives to two four-year terms.

Levine shares the global CEO role with Frank Ryan, also the firm's Americas chair, who took office in January 2021. With Levine's term extension, both co-CEOs' end dates will coincide. Levine was first promoted to co-CEO as part of a larger strategy to further integrate the firm's U.S. and non-U.S. operations, firm leadership told Law360 at the time.

DLA Piper is the product of a 2005 merger between two U.S. firms, Piper Rudnick and Gray Cary, and the U.K. firm DLA. It is currently made up of two separate entities, the U.K.-based DLA Piper International LLP and the U.S.-based DLA Piper LLP, which are governed by the same board and organized together as a Swiss verein.

In 2020, DLA Piper was not immune to turbulence. In addition to the economic uncertainty that all firms experienced, it also appeared to have some of the highest levels of partner churn in BigLaw.

--Additional reporting by Kat Greene, Xiumei Dong and Erin Coe. Editing by Alyssa Miller.

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