Days after veteran managing partner Tim Eyles announced he is stepping down next year, Taylor Wessing has elected Dominic FitzPatrick as its new senior partner, effective immediately.
Private equity specialist and a former head of the firm’s energy group, FitzPatrick replaces Adam Marks after six years.
A partner at the firm for 27 years, he will be chairing the supervisory council, crucially overseeing partners’ remuneration annually. One of his first tasks will be supervising the new managing partner contest, taking place next summer.
Speaking to Legal Business, FitzPatrick described his new role as having two aspects: ‘An ambassadorial role – representing the firm to clients and helping strengthen our relationship with them. And a more internal role – providing support to individual partners and make sure they work effectively as a team.’
He added that while being senior partner will have an impact on client work, ‘one of the attractions of this role for me personally, as opposed to the managing partner role, is the ability to carry on doing fee earning’. He expects the role to take up about a third of his time.
FitzPatrick’s predecessor Marks was first elected as senior partner in 2011 and re-appointed three years later following an uncontested election.
‘A lot of what senior partners do is behind the scenes,’ said FitzPatrick. ‘Adam [Marks] was very effective in keeping the partnership on track.’
News of FitzPatrick’s appointment comes a few days after Eyles confirmed he will not run in the for another term as managing partner in 2018, stepping down after nine years at the helm of the firm .
