After nearly 16 years at King & Spalding in New York and Dubai, corporate partner Benjamin Newland recently left the firm to start his own company called Clear Corporate Services LLC.
Newland, a founder and president of CCS, is now also in the process of moving his family to Spain, only days after twin terrorist attacks rocked the country.
[There] is kind of this eerie echo showing up here just right after these attacks, Newland said of his arrival in Barcelona this past weekend.
But this wasn't Newland's first brush with global terrorism. He joined King & Spalding's New York ranks only a week before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. The collapse of both towers was visible from King & Spalding's office in the city.
Having been in New York for [9/11] and having come here right after, those things happen, Newland said. I don't want to change my life because there's this random violence that is designed to instill that fear to prevent people from going about their lives and enjoying themselves.
Newland's career path will now have him working out of Seville, a capital of the Andalusia region in southern Spain. As president of CCS, Newland will provide corporate management and administrative services to foreign investors, particularly within the area of shariah-compliant finance and investment transactions, in order to help facilitate international investment in the U.S. by building off the corporate practice he had at King & Spalding.
The firm, where Newland made partner a decade ago, exposed him to Islamic finance after he and current Middle East managing partner Jawad Ali were part of a five-lawyer team that opened King & Spalding's Dubai office in 2007. Newland remained in Dubai until 2014, when he relocated back to New York.
Large firms like King & Spalding, he said, are not really designed to handle corporate services, a type of work that essentially involves providing basic administrative services to overseas investment vehicles seeking guidance in complying with certain rules in order to invest in the U.S. For example, there are requirements under Delaware law for how investors should hold annual meetings, issue shares and pass resolutions.
It's not sexy, it's not exciting, in fact I was just [saying] my competitive advantage is that it's the most boring business in the world, joked Newland (pictured right), who began his legal career in 1997 as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.
But once one understands the various processes and intricacies, Newland added that it is possible to capture enough work as a standalone entity to build a lucrative business model.