Allen & Overy (A&O) has made up only two female lawyers to partner as part of a 20-strong round unveiled in the same month the firm vowed a renewed drive towards gender diversity.
The latest promotions fall below the scaled-up 2017 partner promotion round of 24 in which 10 were made up in London. Only four lawyers in London have been promoted to partner this year, as corporate and banking saw the lion’s share of the promotions.
Earlier this month, A&O opened a so-called ‘hub’ office in southwest London’s Vauxhall to facilitate remote working as part of a gender diversity push. Senior partner Wim Dejonghe simultaneously set a target for 30% of partnerships candidates to be women, starting by 2021.
Despite these ambitions, only London banking lawyer Hannah Valintine and Singapore-based litigation lawyer Sheila Ahuja were promoted. The other London promotions are Andrew Cork in corporate, John Kicken in international capital markets (ICM) and James Freeman in litigation.
Corporate and banking made up the majority of the global round, with six partners promoted in each, while litigation saw four made up. One lawyer was promoted in real estate. Singapore gained five new partners, New York and Amsterdam two apiece, with Brussels, Casablanca, Dubai, Hamburg, Seoul, Madrid and Perth one each.
Other Magic Circle promotion rounds include Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s five lawyers in its London partnership, while Linklaters increased the size of its promotions round for the fifth year in a row, adding 27 lawyers to its partnership. Partner promotions have elsewhere generally been mixed so far this year.
Allen & Overy’s partner promotions in full:
- Jonathan Heeringa, Amsterdam – international capital markets
- Jasper de Jong, Amsterdam – corporate
- Frederiek Adams, Brussels – corporate
- Antoine Haddad, Casablanca – banking
- Yacine Francis, Dubai – litigation
- Christian Hilmes, Hamburg – real estate
- Henry Sohn, Seoul – banking
- Hannah Valintine, London – banking
- John Kicken, London – international capital markets
- James Freeman, London – litigation
- Andrew Cork, London – corporate
- Ignacio Hornedo, Madrid – corporate
- Brian Jebb, New York – corporate
- Simon Clark, New York – banking
- David Jenaway, Perth – litigation
- Sheila Ahuja, Singapore – litigation
- Chris Bishop, Singapore – banking
- Scott Lovell, Singapore – banking
- Tim Beech, Singapore – international capital markets
- James Mythen, Singapore – corporate