In an industry struggling to make good on long-held promises to achieve diversity at the partnership level, Weil, Gotshal & Manges has gone against the grain by making up more women than men to partner for the first time in its latest round.
The firm promoted 16 globally, of which nine new partners were women and seven men. Executive partner Barry Wolf claimed the latest round was the most diverse in the firm’s history.
It is also a step up on last year’s investment in 11 partners globally, of which four were women, while the four new partners in the City exceeded the three promoted last year and the one female London partner this year matched last year’s figure.
The four new City partners are Lewis Blakey (private equity), Clare Cottle (business finance & restructuring), Aron Joy (tax) and Marc Schubert (private funds).
Mike Francies, managing partner of Weil’s London office, told Legal Business: ‘Barry Wolf, the firm leadership and myself in London are very keen on promoting women and inclusion generally and we need to make sure these rounds of diverse promotions continue. This promotion round is quite diverse, across seven offices, and I am obviously very pleased with our four new partners in London.’
The other promotions spanned corporate, litigation, business finance & restructuring, tax and executive compensation & benefits in Dallas, Frankfurt, Houston, New York, Silicon Valley and Washington DC.
Weil has also recently been unusually active in the London lateral market, making five hires this year including restructuring partner Neil Devaney from Akin Gump, Linklaters M&A star David Avery-Gee, banking partner Paul Stewart from Ashurst, private equity partner Mark Thompson from Sidley and tax partner Jenny Doak from Vinson & Elkins.