Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) and Ashurst have both announced their latest partner promotions today (23 April), with Herbert Smith promoting considerably more associates than last year while Ashurst made up fewer partners this time around.
Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has promoted 19 lawyers to its partnership, up from just 10 last year, with the majority of the partners come from the firm’s self professed twin engines of corporate and dispute resolution, with seven partners being made up in each practice areas.
Following the firm’s merger with Australian outfit Freehills last summer, seven partners have been made up in Australia. These include corporate lawyers Paul Branston in Brisbane and Mark Currell in Sydney; disputes specialists Leon Chung and Hugh Paynter in Sydney; Matthew Bull, a competition associate in Brisbane; and projects associate Daniel Zador and finance lawyer Rowen Cross, both based in Perth.
In other parts of the Asia-Pacific region, Monica Sun was promoted to a corporate and energy partner in Beijing and Siddhartha Sivaramakrishnan is now an equity capital markets and US securities partner in Singapore. In Hong Kong, Simon Chapman was promoted as an international arbitration partner.
Other partners made up internationally included project finance lawyer Olga Davydava in Moscow; Jonathan Mattout, an investigations and corporate crime expert in Paris; Ben Rubinstein, who focuses on disputes in New York, Edouard Thomas, a corporate partner in Paris and Eduardo Soler-Tappa, now a dispute resolution partner in Madrid.
Only four partners were made up in London: Samantha Brown, now a pensions partner, Mike Flockhart in corporate, Barnaby Hinnigan, a non-contentious insurance and financial institutions specialist and Hywel Jenkins, now a dispute resolution and financial services regulatory partner.
‘This first round of promotions since our merger brings to the partnership a hugely talented group of lawyers who have all shown the necessary international mind-set and business development aptitude to take full advantage of the global platform on which we are now operating,’ said Jonathan Scott, senior partner.
Meanwhile Ashurst appointed 12 partners with effect from 1 May, down from 16 last year. The firm made four appointments in corporate – Rob Aird and Karan Dinamani in London, Aian Abbas in Rome and Jonathan Hsui in Hong Kong; three in energy, transport and infrastructure – Manuel Lopéz in Madrid and Nikhil Markanday and Nick Rainsford in London; two in real estate (Matthew Bool and Ben Patton in London); and one in each of banking (Ross Ollerhead, London), dispute resolution (Pierre-Emmanuel Fender, Paris) and tax (Javier Hernández Galante, Madrid).
As of 1 May 2013, 52% of Ashurst’s partnership will be based outside London, not including Ashurst Australia, while 13% of the partners will be female.
david.stevenson@legalease.co.uk
