Independent Law Firms Forum 2012 - Speakers

Conference chairman

Peter Kurer, former general counsel and chairman of UBS
Peter Kurer is a former business executive and lawyer. His last corporate position was as chairman of UBS. He now works as a strategy adviser.

Kurer obtained law degrees both from University of Zurich and University of Chicago. Following his studies, he worked as a law clerk at the Zurich District Court. Kurer was admitted to the Zurich Bar in 1980 and then joined the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie, where he became a partner in 1985. In 1990, Kurer became a partner at Zurich law firm Homburger and headed its corporate law practice group. He specialised in M&A and corporate law and also served on a number of boards for public and private companies.

In 2001, Kurer joined UBS as its general counsel and also became a member of UBS' group executive board in 2002. In April 2008, he was elected chairman of UBS for a one-year term. He did not seek re-election in 2009, choosing to retire.

Kurer has regularly published articles on M&A topics, corporate governance issues, financial services regulation and evolution of the legal profession. He now works as a strategy adviser on corporate finance transactions, corporate governance, financial services regulation and legal management.

Keynote speaker

Chris Saul, senior partner, Slaughter and May
Chris Saul is the senior partner at Slaughter and May. He joined the firm in 1977 and has been a partner since 1986.

He is a corporate lawyer and focuses on public and private M&A, private equity and securities offerings. Clients include GE, Unilever, Azko Nobel, First Reserve Group, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

In addition to fee-earning work, and in his role as senior partner, he chairs the firm's partnership board and meetings of partners and is involved in many of the firm's client relationships.

Speakers

Philip Berkowitz, practice co-chair, international employment and labour law, Littler Mendelson
Tobias Bürgers, co-speaker, Noerr
Pedro Guimarães, partner, FCB&
Michael Herlihy, general counsel, Smiths Group
Alex Holtum, International Law Firm Solutions
Stephan König, founding partner, Oppenhoff & Partner
David Liu, partner, Jun He Law Offices
Per Magnusson, managing partner, Magnusson
Michael McCue, partner, Lewis and Roca
Ilya Nikiforov, managing partner, St Petersburg office, Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners
Vittorio Noseda, managing partner, NCTM
Ender Özeke, partner, Hergüner Bilgen Özeke
John Renz, director of human resources, Novae Group and former HR director, Mourant and CMS Cameron McKenna
Manuel Santos Vitor, managing partner, PLMJ
Chris Seaton, partner and chair of international committee, Burges Salmon
David Snell, head of professional partnerships advisory group, PWC
Jonathan Zhou, partner, Fangda Partners