Legal Business Blogs

A&O focuses on banking in reduced promotions round

Allen & Overy (A&O) has made up six in London in a reduced promotions round of 21, with almost half the promotions made in the firm’s banking team.

The Magic Circle firm made up ten banking partners, with three of six London promotions from the banking team.

A&O strengthened its banking team significantly with the introduction of new partners Darren Hanwell, Matt Moore and Kate Sumpter. Others promoted to partner include tax practitioner James Burton, litigator Kate Davies and pensions lawyer Jane Higgins.

One down on last year’s 22 promotions, 15 of the 21 new partners will be based outside of A&O’s London office. Seven have been appointed in the Asia Pacific region, with others made up in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Moscow, New York and Paris.

Last year’s round saw just under a third of the 22 made up in the City while a strong contingent was based in continental Europe.

Notably, 29% of the firm’s partner promotions this year are women, down from last year when 41% of females made the cut.

A&O managing partner Wim Dejonghe said: ‘These promotions represent another significant investment in the quality of our international network and the future of our business. The broad spread of locations also underlines the demand we anticipate from clients across our network.’

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Read more about A&O’s banking practice in the feature: ‘Golden goodbyes – changing faces and fortunes at the City’s top banking teams’

The partner promotions in full:

James Abbott, banking, Sydney

Andrew Battisson, litigation, Singapore

James Burton, tax, London

John Coburn, banking, Frankfurt

Jean-Christophe David, banking, Paris

Kate Davies, litigation, London

Ilya Dvorkin, banking, Moscow

Alun Evans, corporate, Singapore

Goran Galic, corporate, Perth

Tarsis Halintar, banking, Jakarta

Darren Hanwell, banking, London

Jane Higgins, pensions, London

Matthew Hodgson, litigation, Hong Kong

Matt Moore, banking, London

Romy Richter, corporate, Paris

Sophie Roozendaal, corporate, Amsterdam

Knut Sauer, international capital markets, Frankfurt

Yaakov Sheinfeld, real estate, New York

Kate Sumpter, banking, London

Kathleen Wong, banking, Johannesburg

Richard Woodworth, banking, Hong Kong