Around the house

On Monday, premier exchange-traded fund provider ProShares announced the appointment of Richard Morris as the company's new general counsel. Mr Morris boasts more than 20 years of legal experience in asset management and has previously served as general counsel for Wisdom Tree Asset Management, senior attorney for iShares and as staff attorney at the US Securities Exchange Commission. Mr Morris joins ProShares from his most recent role as partner at law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius.

Meanwhile, RCS Capital (RCAP) has announced that assistant general counsel Mason Allen has been promoted to the role of general counsel. A statement released this week by the investment firm explains that Mr Allen will take over from former general counsel James Tanaka, effective immediately. Mr Allen's promotion comes amid ongoing turbulence at RCAP, after one of the company's units announced a $23 million accounting error in October 2014. Another RCAP unit, Realty Capital Securities, has also been recently charged by regulators with fraudulently casting shareholder proxy votes.

Also this week, West Pharmaceutical Services has named George L. Miller as its new senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. Mr Miller brings more than 30 years of global corporate legal experience, having previously held posts in Tokyo, New York and Basel for Swiss pharma multinational Novartis International and in Tokyo for Federal Express Corp. He joins West Pharmaceutical from Sigma-Aldrich Corp, where he served as senior vice president, general counsel and secretary.

Towers Watson & Co general counsel and secretary Kirkland L. Hicks is moving to Lincoln Financial Group, where he will take up the role of executive vice president and general counsel from 10 December. In addition to a Juris Doctor from Duke University Law School and a bachelor's degree in computer science from North Carolina A&T State University, Mr Hicks also completed a leadership development program at Harvard Business School.

Finally, online lending platform Lending.com named Liz Verrier as its new chief legal officer late last month. Ms Verrier joins from American Express, where she has served as vice president and senior counsel. Her work there focused on the company's emerging payments and technologies business unit, and was recognised with the 2015 American Express Chairman's Award for Innovation.