Ince & Co's first London office head will be its last, while Squire Patton Boggs' ex-London Managing Partner has also quit his firm. 

Andrew Jameson is leaving Ince & Co after just over 12 months in the role, RollOnFriday has learned. The barrister, who was previously Director of HR and, some time before that, a senior submarine officer in the Royal Navy will dive, dive, dive at the end of the year. His departure dovetails with the arrival of Ince & Co's new masters, listed firm Gordon Dadds. Structured as a reverse takeover, it is swallowing up Ince for an estimated £34m to create a new firm with turnover of £110m which will enter the UK top 40 in terms of revenue.

Ince was in merger talks with two other firms before discussions with Gordon Dadds bore fruit, RollOnFriday understands. There were signs it needed one. It was RollOnFriday's Firm of the Year twice in a row in 2012 and 2013 ("Every day we ride on golden unicorns...I love my job", a lawyer told us back then). But it has slipped down the rankings ever since against a tumultuous background of redundancies and departures, including the sudden step-down and relocation to Hong Kong of senior partner Jan Heuvels. 2016: "as for the unicorn, it was violently fisted before being sold on to the glue factory to help recoup operational cost".

But now that the firm has been shepherded to a merger and relative safety, and with Gordon Dadds' managing partner set to become the leader of IGD, Jameson's ostensible job is done. "I have agreed that it is in the best interests of all concerned that I will leave on completion of the merger, given that we will not need a separate Head of Office", Jameson told RollOnFriday. "I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the team at Ince & Co and am genuinely excited for the future of Ince Gordon Dadds".

In other au-revoir-boss news, Squire Patton Boggs' former London Managing partner, Rob Weekes, has left the firm. He resigned on 30 November, six months after being bumped for an American in May. SPB London staff praised Weekes to RollOnFriday as a "fabulous office managing partner and colleague until he got replaced - by some bloke from Cincinnati". Global Managing Partner Stephen Mahon, who splits his time between Cincinnati, New York, London and Washington DC, received short shrift from insiders for his helicopter parenting. "We certainly never see him" said one, "- is he even in the country?? Not many partners turned up to the only partner lunch he’s organised since he started". They labelled it a "disgrace" that SPB would "care so little about the office that used to be the most profitable". A hearty welcome indeed. SPB didn't respond to a request for comment.

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