RPC and Pallas Partners confides two appointments

RPC and Pallas Partners confides two appointments

RPC hires team leader in London from Stephenson Harwood while Pallas introduces their first partner lateral

This week two noticeable appointments viewed in RPC and Pallas Partners freshly launched enhancement of their arbitration partners' positions.

Shai Wade's arrival from London rival Stephenson Harwood is celebrated by RPC while Natasha Harrison, former deputy chair of Boies Schiller Flexner held her new firm's first lateral partner employee: Nelson Goh, counsel of Debevoise & Plimpton.

Last week, Wade, highly popular in arbitration circles, has declared his departure from Stephenson Harwood in LinkedIn. He has also thanked his ex-partners for all their support and cooperation during his 10-year tenure at the firm.

He will bring in 25 years of experience to his RPC's London arbitration team where he will lead being active in all the major arbitral institutions. Expected, he will finally succeed Jonathan Wood, the practice chair.

The firm's key practice areas includes infrastructure; international sale of goods; upstream oil and gas and energy; and joint venture, partnership and shareholder disputes, which his sectorial experience fits in. Similar to Wood, he will run his counsel work along with developing an arbitrator practice.

According to RPC, Wade's appointment brings in disputes resolution capabilities improving strategy in London and Asia. The firm hired Swee Siang Boey and Yuankai Lin, Singaporean disputes partners from Bird & Bird in 2020, but the firm underwent a complication in January 2022, when Andy McGregor, civil fraud head of London was shattered by Allen & Overy.

"Shai's advent came at an apt time as the international arbitration market growth carries on at a record leap," said Wood.

Wade's team at RPC will include Tatiana Minaeva, who joined in 2019 from Jones Day and Charles Allen, the London-based arbitration partners and Wood, the immensely experienced professional.

Wade and Minaeva were the pillars in arranging Tel Aviv Arbitration Week, held in March 2022, hence he is not unfamiliar to the team and was also primarily present in London International Disputes Week taken place at May 2022.

In the meantime, the arrival of Goh as the firm's seventh partner, touched an important milestone at Pallas Partners, launched during publicity flash by Harrison in February 2022.

Besides arbitration, a dual-qualified London and Singaporean lawyer, Goh has litigation experience ranging from antitrust, climate change litigation and public international law claims.

In this range, the work profiles acting for a state-owned Asian oil company in a joint-venture dispute regarding a high-profile energy project in Africa.

Including all with Asian connections, he has gained experience in energy, joint-venture and general commercial disputes. Remarkably as a fellow at his alma mater, the National University of Singapore, he also preserves a strong academic profile.

The challenge that Pallas presented as 'a different kind of law firm' is the main cause of attraction according to Goh and he has also highlighted its commitment to ESG and pro bono work.

Supporting the Clooney Foundation for Justice and Chab Dai UK, an anti-human trafficking NGO includes his pro bono work.

Goh served the Singapore Navy as his national service and was awarded the Sword of Honour on graduation as an officer cadet, later qualified with Rajah & Tann.

In 2018, before joining Debevoise, the initiative brings him back together with previous colleagues at Pallas, with whom he has spent two-and-a-half years at Boies Schiller's London office.