Charles Russell Speechlys opens in New York with a six-partner move from Withers
The London private client firm has opened offices in New York and Connecticut, hiring a six-partner team from Withers to build its first North American base.
On 8 July 2026, Charles Russell Speechlys opened an office at 1 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, its first in North America and the sixteenth in the firm’s network. The London-headquartered firm opened a second American base the same day, a private client practice in New Haven, Connecticut.
The launch rests on a lateral hire. Charles Russell Speechlys recruited a six-partner private client team from Withers, the firm whose US arm has long been a fixture in cross-border trusts and estates work. Withers built that practice after a 2002 merger with the New Haven firm Bergman Horowitz & Reynolds, and it now runs seven US offices with more than 380 people and roughly $200 million in annual revenue, according to a statement the firm gave to the Global Legal Post.
Who is moving
The New York office is led by Kurt Rademacher, an international private client partner who joined Charles Russell Speechlys in 2023 from Butler Snow and previously ran a US private client practice out of Singapore. Two London partners are relocating to support the launch: Stewart Hey, the firm’s global head of litigation, and private client partner Sangna Chauhan. They are joined in New York by three arrivals connected to Withers, including Phillip Colasanto as a partner, senior counsel Reaz Jafri and Hugh Dixon, who becomes the first US-based adviser to the firm’s private office.
The Connecticut practice takes the bulk of the incoming Withers team. Shannon Smith joins as head of tax controversy and leads five further partners: Aaron Schumacher, Karen Yates, Wonchi Ju, Sandy Christopher and Michael Steffany. Their work centres on cross-border trusts and estates, US and international tax planning, IRS compliance and the structuring of family wealth for internationally mobile clients.
Why private capital
Charles Russell Speechlys uses “private capital” to mean the legal needs of wealthy families and individuals rather than proximity to private equity or institutional money. Its clients, the firm says, are the people behind the funds, alongside entrepreneurs, family offices and globally mobile individuals whose affairs span more than one jurisdiction. Simon Ridpath, the global managing partner, called the opening a defining moment and said the firm was arriving “with capability” rather than ambition.
What it signals
For anyone tracking the adviser landscape, the timing matters. The US holds the largest concentration of private wealth in the world, and London private client firms have started to build there in earnest. Charles Russell Speechlys opened in Milan in 2024 and Singapore the year before, both moves aimed at wealth centres drawing internationally mobile families. Its New York launch also follows Macfarlanes, which opened a representative office in the city earlier in 2026 to reach US private capital and private wealth clients.
The pattern is a familiar one in professional services. Growth comes by hiring an established team rather than building from nothing, and the firm losing that team keeps investing to hold its position. Withers has already promoted new partners across its US offices this year. For UHNW families with assets and family members on both sides of the Atlantic, the practical result is more choice among firms that can coordinate advice across US and international tax systems from a base in New York.
Sources: Charles Russell Speechlys / Business Wire, The Global Legal Post.
