Very regrettably, we haven’t had much gossip to report about the recent arrival Norton Rose since it formally merged with (and renamed) Deacons Lawyers on 1 January this year (if you have Norton Rose gossip – tell us).
So we cast the net slightly wider than normal and stumbled onto an interesting development over in the London office of the firm. It involves:
- a lawyer who counts Hollywood actresses as neighbours;
- a blonde 18 year-old girl;
- a marriage proposal;
- a group of Russians; and
- billions and billions of dollars.
And no, we’re not talking about the plot-line of the next 007 movie. Nor are we talking about the recent Russian espionage saga that unfolded in the US and which resulted, remarkably, in a “hero’s welcome” for the outed spies and a men’s magazine spread by the flame-mopped minx Anna Chapman.
We’re talking about Mr Nikolai Lazarev, a very-recently departed junior lawyer at the London office of Norton Rose. Lazarev, who counted banking law and commercial litigation as his areas of expertise while at the firm, proposed to last week to the teenage daughter of England’s second wealthiest man, Roman Abramovich.
For those unfamiliar with Mr Abramovich, you may have heard of one of his possessions – the Chelsea Football Club; a piddling investment for a man estimated by Forbes Magazine to be have a personal wealth of $11.2billion. The security-conscious 43 year-old exits his house under the guard of a 40-man private army.
However,according to the UK Daily Mail, 27yo Nikolai Lazarev was able to infiltrate this marauding pack of heavies to steal the affections of arguably Abramovich’s most prized possession; his 18year-old daughter Anna.
Perhaps Mr Lazarev achieved this feat because Mr Abramovich and his private army simply dismissed him as a potential suitor, given the following depiction of the man offered by the UK Daily Mail:
Yes, rollerblading! The article goes on:
Those who know Nikolai say he is a clean-living and hard-working individual. He was born in Moscow and although little is known about his early life, it’s clear that his family enjoyed something of a Reds-to-riches story. The family home, now rented out, is a two-bedroom flat on the fifth floor of a Soviet-era tower block to the west of the city centre. The flat is listed in Moscow databases as being ‘communal’ — suggesting it is or was occupied by several families who shared the toilet, bathroom and kitchen.
For the past two years, he’s been living in an apartment a stone’s throw from Hyde Park. One of his closest neighbours is the actress Keira Knightley. Land registry records show he bought the property from his father for £1.35 million.
It is unclear whether Nikolai attended Anna’s recent 16th birthday which was widely reported in the UK for its extravegance:
…costing her father more than £100,000. The party was held at Paper, a nightclub in London’s West End, and 500 friends attended. Music was courtesy of the Mercury prize-winning Klaxons and Brazilian band CSS; the DJ was the television presenter Alexa Chung. On entry, guests had to file past a metal detector and hand in the batteries of their mobile phones (which were filed in numbered plastic bags) before stepping on to an illuminated dancefloor surrounded by bodyguards. Within the club, two bars offered non-alcoholic cocktails and the tables were stacked with marshmallows, chocolate-dipped strawberries, cakes and sweets — all coloured pink or black. Anna had told her friends to ‘dress to impress’, and herself wore a couture Dior orange dress — the only one in the country.
In terms of how Nikolai made his way into the London offices of Norton Rose, The Daily Mail reports:
Nikolai was educated at Hurtwood House, where annual fees stand at £30,000 a year, making it one of the most expensive schools in Britain. He went on to read law at University College London, graduated in 2004 and then did his legal practice course at the private BPP Law School in the capital. From there, he joined City firm Norton Rose as a trainee lawyer, before qualifying as a solicitor on February 1 this year. He has now left Norton Rose with a view to becoming a barrister.
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