Eversheds Sutherland has recruited the former co-managing partner of Bird & Bird’s French offices in Paris along with her six lawyer employment and labour team.
Benjamine Fiedler has spent the past 25 years at Bird & Bird and has made the move alongside partner Chris Ivey and five associates. The team brings extensive experience in the full lifecycle of employment relations management including within the context of reorganisations, litigation, outsourcing and business transformation.
Deborah Attali, Eversheds partner and head of its employment practice in France, said the team’s hire “not only deepens our legal technical capabilities but also reflects our shared ambition to build one of the most influential employment and labour law teams”.
Fiedler joined Bird & Bird in 2000 and was co-managing partner of the firm’s offices in Paris and Lyon from 2013 until 2021. She brings expertise in employment litigation, including unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment claims, and advises on employment relations, M&A and outsourcing transactions, both domestically and cross-border, as well as business restructuring.
Meanwhile Ivey, who practised at Freshfields before joining Bird & Bird in 2013, advises global companies and executives on employment matters ranging from day-to-day issues to complex restructurings and corporate transactions. Dual-qualfied in France and New York, he regularly works with clients in the aviation, media, entertainment and sports sectors.
The incoming team brings Eversheds’ Paris employment team to 17, including five partners. The firm’s wider employment practice of 430 lawyers is among the largest in the world, in line with that of firms like DLA Piper and Gordon & Rees according to publicly available data tracked by Pirical, and is well regarded for its capabilities in both contentious and advisory matters.
A Bird & Bird spokesperson commented: “Employment partners Benjamine Fiedler and Chris Ivey in Paris left the firm on 31 October 2025. We thank them both for their contributions and wish them all the best for the future.”
The team’s hire comes amid a wider growth push by Eversheds that has seen it add 17 partners this year in Continental Europe, including international arbitration lawyer Anne-Marie Lacoste and IP/IT and privacy specialist Caroline Lyannaz, who joined in Paris from Quinn Emanuel and White & Case respectively. Both were counsel at the former firms.
Eversheds also absorbed a Czech boutique in August that brought it a 13-strong team led by partner Pavel Kropáček, in the process creating one of the largest real estate legal offerings in Prague.
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