Israel Desks in the Spotlight: Charles Russell Speechlys (“CRS”)

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  1. What are the primary strategic objectives for the Israel-focused legal team in the upcoming year, and how do they align with the overall goals of the global law firm ?

Our strategic objective has changed since October 7th. We had intended to push and grow our relationships but now we are more focused on consolidating our relationships and providing support for Israeli firms and companies, as necessary. We will still focus on our private client expertise and promote our unique selling point of being a firm dedicated to transactions with private capital. This aligns with our firm’s global goal of promoting our private capital focus.

2. How does the team collaborate internally and externally to stay abreast of the latest legal developments in Israel and globally?
Collaboration is one of our core Firm values and we have a Global Relationships Committee to support this. We have 12 offices covering major markets in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia advising on English and local laws. There are also many countries – Israel included – where we do not have an office, but instead have a ‘desk’. These international desks are typically made up of multidisciplinary teams from across the Firm, and cover Israel, India, the Americas, Africa, Italy and Germany. Our Israel desk is headed by Alexander Gold, who is accompanied by a number of other Partners supporting the initiative.

Where we do not have offices, we also work with leading local law firms selected to match our standards for legal expertise, client service and values. Our network of preferred law firms covers almost 200 jurisdictions worldwide, and we maintain close connections and contact with all of them. All of our desks meet regularly to discuss topical issues, share opportunities and track global developments. The desks all feed into a Global Relationships Committee, which distributes updates in relation to the firm on a quarterly basis by way of a newsletter.

Additionally, all of our desks, including the Israel desk, regularly post content online.

3. What opportunities does the head of the Israel-focused legal team foresee for expanding the firm’s presence and influence in Israel?

Our primary focus is our private client work. We are best known for being one of the world’s leading law firms for Private Wealth, consistently being top ranked globally for our work in this area. We provide a fully integrated service to wealthy HNW / UHNW individuals and their families, family offices, landed estates, private banks, trustees, wealth managers. We have over 90 lawyers advising on core tax, trusts and succession matters across our firm and a further 50 plus in broader private client work. This makes us one of the largest teams in the global Private Wealth market. We sponsor the STEP conference in Israel and intend to do so again at this year’s event. We will be making more trips to Israel and continuing to build our relationships with law firms, accountants and companies.

  1. What are the challenges facing the firm’s Israeli desk? How does the team address potential cultural or jurisdictional challenges when working on cases that involve both Israeli and global legal perspectives?

As with many other firms, our travel to Israel is limited by the current situation and we hope to be back as soon as possible. We rarely experience challenges when working on joint cases as we have a partner (Ziva Robertson) who is Israeli and can always assist with any issues which may arise. In addition, we have a number of lawyers who have worked with Israeli and Israeli companies for a number of years and are very familiar with cultural and jurisdictional differences.

  1. What priorities do you have for the Israeli Desk in 2024?

Our primary focus is to support our contacts from the region and to promote our private client work. We are working with both Nishlis Marketing and the Israeli Embassy in the UK to promote our reputation in this area.

  1. Would you like to put a spotlight on any Israel related lawyer or practice?
Ziva Robertson – Ziva specializes in both contentious and non-contentious trusts, structuring and succession advice to ultra-high net worth individuals and their businesses. Ziva has successfully pursued and defended cases in the UK and abroad, including the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Channel Islands and the Middle East.

Charles Russell Speechlys LLP

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