Morrison & Foerster Loses Blockchain Co-chairs To Allen & Overy, Stradley

Former co-chairs of Morrison & Foerster’s blockchain and smart contracts group, Susan Gault-Brown and Dario de Martino, have moved to Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young and Allen & Overy, respectively.

Gault-Brown, who spent more than three years at MoFo, will chair Philadelphia-based Stradley Ronon’s fintech practice out of Washington, DC, the firm announced Tuesday, September 21.

UK-based international firm Allen & Overy said Tuesday that de Martino has joined the firm as an M&A partner in New York.

Gault-Brown previously worked at the US Securities and Exchange Commission and as a partner at K&L Gates and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, before decamping to MoFo.

She said in 220-attorney Stradley Ronon, she found a “more established” investment management group.

“Although the firm size is much smaller, at Stradley, the investment management practice is much larger and deeper,” she said.

Gault-Brown’s clients have included investment advisors, registered funds and private funds. She said clients have recently become more focused on decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens, and said that she will be bringing some clients over from her former firm.

According to Gault-Brown, the timing of her and de Martino’s moves were coincidence, not coordination. “We are good friends and good colleagues, but we both had our own paths that we were trying to follow,” she said.

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