Morgan Lewis Boosts Cross-Border Capabilities with New Funds Partner in Paris

PARIS, March 31, 2008: Morgan Lewis today announced the addition of Ann G. Baker—formerly the Paris head of the private equity fund formation practice at Debevoise & Plimpton—as a partner in its Business & Finance Practice, resident in the firm’s Paris office. Ann’s arrival reflects Morgan Lewis’s continued commitment to meeting the legal needs of corporate clients in Europe, where she will be an integral part of the firm’s cross-border funds practice.

Ann will join Morgan Lewis’s highly rated Private Investment Funds group, which is led by New York–based Louis H. Singer. The group—comprising nearly 50 attorneys around the world from the firm’s Business & Finance, Investment Management, and Employee Benefits Practices—specializes in both fund formation and investment for U.S. and international investors and represents every type of private investment fund, including buyout, venture capital, real estate opportunity, corporate governance, hedge, distressed assets, and mezzanine funds. Morgan Lewis was recently ranked by Private Equity Analyst as the second most active law firm by number of funds worked on for general and limited partners. The practice will also be listed this year in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business.

Ann has more than 25 years of international experience, having worked in New York, Prague, and Paris, and over 10 years of experience in fund formation. She represents sponsors of and investors in a broad range of international private equity and other private investment funds. In particular, she advises European and U.S. fund sponsors on multijurisdictional offerings to a diverse international institutional investor base.

Ann joins a Business and Finance team that already spans the United States, Europe, and Asia, with more than 300 transactional lawyers who focus on a wide variety of areas, including mergers and acquisitions, private equity, finance, and capital markets. Her arrival at Morgan Lewis reunites her with London-based funds partner Saloni Joshi, who joined the firm from Debevoise late last summer. Also joining Morgan Lewis in Paris this week is associate Rima Maitrehenry, who worked with Ann at her previous firm.

The Paris office is one of four Morgan Lewis offices in Europe, including offices in London, Frankfurt, and Brussels. With top-tier clients and broad experience across industries, Morgan Lewis's Paris office dramatically strengthens the firm's European and international services, particularly in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, tax, corporate governance, labor and employment, litigation, public and environmental law, and antitrust. Last year, the inaugural edition of Chambers Europe recognized Morgan Lewis in a number of practice areas, including “Venture Capital: Private Equity” in France.

About Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Morgan Lewis is an international law firm with more than 1,400 lawyers in 22 offices located in Beijing, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, Harrisburg, Houston, Irvine, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Princeton, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. For more information about Morgan Lewis, please visit www.morganlewis.com.