Cleary Gottlieb hires Isabel Rooms from Linklaters

Cleary Gottlieb hires Isabel Rooms from Linklaters

Isabel Rooms, competition and antitrust lawyer who spent 11 years at a UK rival, is joining New York powerhouse

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has appointed Isabel Rooms as a competition partner from Linklaters to strengthen its antitrust practice in Brussels.

Rooms has been at Linklaters for 11 years, the last two as a partner and will join Cleary's 24-lawyer antitrust group in the EU regulatory hub.

Rooms is moving across the street from Linklaters, where tax lawyer Matthew Brigham will serve as counsel for the firm in its New York headquarters.

Currently, Cleary lists 15 Brussels-based firms on its website and is known for its strong European antitrust practice. The firm has maintained one of the longest tenures in Brussels among US rivals. It first opened an office in Brussels in 1960 and has since grown organically rather than through lateral hiring, with Rooms representing the firm's first lateral hire in Brussels in 15 years, according to Law.com.

Marijke Spooren was one of the firm's most recent additions to its Brussels antitrust group. She joined the firm during the latest promotional round of Cleary's in October, in which Henry Mostyn was also promoted to the London office. The promotions follow Cleary's recent recruitment of Jackie Holland from Slaughter and May in March, which strengthened its London competition team.

She will continue to focus on merger control, abuse of dominance and cartel practices while continuing to focus on multi-jurisdictional transactions in her new role at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. She worked for Linklaters for eleven years, representing clients in several European and international jurisdictions, including the European Commission and the Belgian Competition Authority, the firm reports.

The Brussels competition partner at Cleary, Robert Snelders, said that Rooms brings "a wealth of experience to our team. Her experience includes notable merger control and complex behavioural cases [...] Our global competition practice deals with some of the most sensitive and business-critical matters in the market. Isabel's arrival will enhance both our Brussels and global capabilities."

In 2008, Rooms began her legal career at Norton Rose Fulbright's Brussels office and two years later moved over to Linklaters. Between 2012 and 2015, she worked in the firm's New York and London offices, according to her LinkedIn profile, and was made a partner in 2020.

In addition, Brigham has considerable experience in international and domestic tax matters, including complex capital markets, financing, and liability management transactions, as well as the formation of private equity funds and merger and acquisition activities. According to his LinkedIn profile, he previously spent six years with Paul Hastings in New York before joining Linklaters in 2013.

Meanwhile, Cleary, which launched in Palo Alto in November, has hired WilmerHale's top antitrust litigator, Heather Nyong'o. Also, three existing partners, including the firm's most senior antitrust attorney George Cary, relocated to spearhead the launch alongside six associates in preparation for the firm's planned second Bay Area office in San Francisco to complement its Silicon Valley office.

Following the UK's exit from the EU, several of Cleary's Wall Street rivals have been opening offices in Brussels with the intention of taking on more European competition work. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, a New York-based rival law firm, hired Italian competition partner Antonio Bavasso for its September arrival in Brussels, while Fried Frank opened there last month under London-based partner Tobias Caspary and international trade associate Neda Moussavi.