
Honigman, a large international law firm based in Detroit, has launched Honigman Law Israel (HLI), an Israeli subsidiary that provides an opportunity for U.S.-educated, licensed, and experienced attorneys who wish to relocate their homes to Israel.
The new subsidiary allows participating attorneys to maintain their U.S. M&A, capital markets, venture capital, real estate, and life science practices.
In addition, HLI offers its lawyers an opportunity to continue practicing on complex U.S. legal matters at compensation levels based on Honigman’s U.S. scale. Setting it apart from other U.S. law firms that may have one or two attorneys in Israel working from home offices, HLI is structured to enable its attorneys to work on the Israeli schedule, where the workweek is Sunday through Thursday, and based on the local time zone.
“We’re honored to bring on these five top-notch attorneys from some of the most prominent law firms in the U.S. and expect to bring in many more highly qualified individuals through this initiative,” says David Foltyn, chair and CEO of Honigman.
“We have continued to see incredible demand for our transactional counsel, which in turn requires that we continue to grow with the most talented lawyers. With HLI, we have created a win-win opportunity for A+ attorneys who want to reside in Israel for personal reasons but did not have a path to doing so, and for Honigman, which can deepen and expand the great talent we can devote to our clients.”
HLI has announced the hiring of its first five attorneys: Sam Katz, corporate and capital markets, who joined from Ellenoff Grossman & Schole; Inbar Rauchwerger, mergers and acquisitions, who joined from Goodwin Procter; Aviv Avnon, finance, who joined from Davis Polk & Wardwell; David Snyder, tax, who will be joining upon his relocation to Israel, whose U.S. experience includes Roberts & Holland and Paul Weiss; and Rachel Rhodes, corporate and capital markets, who will be joining in September, whose U.S. experience includes Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and Fried Frank.
The development of the concept is an outgrowth of Honigman’s years of close familiarity with Israel-United States business dealings and the reduced significance of geography realized through the pandemic. The implementation of this strategy, including working through myriad tax, ethical and legal challenges, required the better part of a year of investment.