Dentons Installs Leaders Across Nine Practice Groups in Global Shake-Up

Dentons has appointed global practice leaders across nine legal practice groups, with every appointment running on a three-year term approved by the firm's Global Management Committee. The scale of the reshuffle — 15 named partners across North America, Europe and Asia — signals an attempt to bind together a firm that operates in more than 175 locations across over 85 countries.

The firm frames the move as a service upgrade. The new structure is designed to improve coordination among practice teams and global sector leaders, and to give clients more consistent access to legal expertise across international markets. What Dentons has not said is how the new chairs' authority will interact with existing local managing partners — the usual friction point in global law firm reorganizations.

Global CEO Kate Barton put the rationale plainly:

"Strong cross-border collaboration is fundamental to how we deliver for our clients. Our ability to seamlessly connect them to the right people and capabilities, wherever they need it, is a significant part of that. This new framework is designed to make Dentons more accessible and consistent for our clients across our presence in more than 175 locations in over 85 countries."

The promise of seamlessness is easy to make and hard to audit; clients will judge the framework by whether referral and staffing actually speed up.

Who now runs what?

The appointments cover Banking and Finance, Corporate/M&A, Disputes, Employment and Labor, Intellectual Property and Technology, Public Policy and Regulation, Real Estate, Restructuring and Insolvency, and Tax.

• Banking and Finance: Nick Hayday (London), sole Chair. He advises underwriters and issuers on international debt, equity and equity-related securities transactions, including Islamic finance and liability management.
• Corporate/M&A: Co-chairs Eavan Saunders and Kimberly Burns. Saunders manages Dentons' Dublin office and acts for financial investors, multinationals and Irish businesses. Burns, in Vancouver, leads the Canadian M&A practice, covering major acquisitions, capital markets and corporate governance.
• Disputes: Co-chairs Karyn Harty (Dublin), whose litigation practice spans commercial disputes, investigations, asset recovery and white-collar defense, and Roberto Lipari (Rome), who leads litigation and dispute resolution in Italy and Europe and has represented businesses and sovereign entities in litigation and international arbitration.
• Employment and Labor: Purvis Ghani (London), a partner specializing in employment law.
• Intellectual Property and Technology: Co-chairs Karol Laskowski (Warsaw), covering technology, media, entertainment and telecommunications, and Robert Wasnofski (New York), focused on IP disputes involving trademarks, copyrights and patents.
• Public Policy and Regulation: Co-chairs Eric Tanenblatt (Washington, D.C., and Atlanta) and Dr. Ilka Mehdorn (Berlin), whose combined experience spans government relations, public affairs, regulated industries, environmental law and regulatory projects.
• Real Estate: Co-chairs Evan Lazar, who specializes in international real estate investment and financing including data centers, logistics properties, hotels and other commercial assets, and Esme Cragg (Toronto), focused on acquisitions, dispositions, financing, leasing and development.
• Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy: A three-way co-chairmanship — Andreas Ziegenhagen (Germany), Susan Moore (London) and Kenneth Kraft (Toronto) — with experience in corporate restructurings, insolvency proceedings, distressed transactions and cross-border disputes.
• Tax: Jurjen Bevers (Amsterdam) as Chair, backed by four deputies: Larry Nevsky (Toronto), Alex Thomas (United Kingdom), Linda Pfatteicher (California) and Chun Ying Ng (Singapore).

In plain terms, Dentons has spread leadership deliberately thin geographically — no region holds a majority of the chairs.

Does the structure change anything for clients?

Dentons says the appointments establish a leadership network spanning North America, Europe and Asia, and that the firm intends to use the structure to support closer coordination across international practices and improve the delivery of multidisciplinary legal services.

Three-year terms give the new chairs a defined window to prove the framework works. The test will come in cross-border mandates, where the firm has historically had the most to gain — and the most coordination to lose.