'Mayfair is where we belong': McDermott snubs City for larger West End HQ

McDermott is set to move its UK headquarters to Mayfair in the heart of London’s private capital district. The US giant has secured a 15-year lease across the second to ninth floors of the Lazari Building and will relocate in 2028.

It becomes the second major US firm to bet on the West End over the City, following Paul Weiss’s choice of Soho for its 2023 London relaunch.

The move

The new Brook Street address was once home to the iconic Fenwick department store. It has now been redesigned by Foster & Partners, the architects behind The Gherkin.

At 115,000 sq ft, the firm’s new space is understood to be around four times the size of its current office on the 46th floor of City skyscraper 22 Bishopsgate - a sign of McDermott’s growing ambitions this side of the Atlantic.

In May, reports emerged that the firm was in advanced talks with Schulte Roth & Zabel over a proposed $2.8 billion tie-up that would create a 1,700-lawyer powerhouse and deepen McDermott’s access to private equity and alternative asset manager clients - which tend to site their London offices in Mayfair and St. James's.

22 Bishopsgate also houses the likes of Skadden, Perkins Coie, Cooley and Covington & Burling.

What they said

Aymen Mahmoud, McDermott’s London managing partner, described the office as "a space that truly represents our ambition to be at the pinnacle of the London legal market. This space reflects who we are: dynamic, collaborative, and future-focused. Mayfair is exactly where we belong: at the centre of the conversation, at the top of the market and shoulder to shoulder with our clients".