Mark Sansom will take over from Claire Wills as London managing partner at Freshfields, the firm has announced. The move comes at the end of Wills’ four-year term, and will take effect on 1 May. Sansom will also continue his client work.
An accomplished competition litigator, Sansom has worked closely with Wills, first as a partner and from July 2022 as London head of dispute resolution. ‘Mark and I have been in the trenches together, working with the other practice heads, developing the London strategy,’ Wills told Legal Business. ‘What I am planning to spend my time on now is supporting Mark in action, at the coal face, with my corporate, transactional, and M&A work.’
Wills became London managing partner in February 2019. At that time, one of the main upheavals the firm saw on the horizon was its upcoming move from its Fleet Street headquarters to new offices in Bishopsgate. But then Covid hit, and Wills was confronted with unprecedented challenges.
‘Claire’s a fantastic person to follow on from’, Sansom said. ‘She did an amazing job over the last four years, navigating through the pandemic and all the changes to work. She’s been absolutely exemplary.’
Now, Sansom sees significant opportunities. ‘Going forwards, as we come out of that crisis period that the whole industry had to go through, we’re in a really exciting moment for the London market.’
‘You only have to look at what other firms are doing in terms of their investment decisions at the moment: all of them are doubling down on London.’
Freshfields has already increased its investment in London in recent years. The office brought in three lateral partners in 2022 – its first since 2018. ‘We also focus on the internal pipeline’, Sansom explained. ‘There are a lot of folks who have been with Freshfields for their whole careers, and we want to make sure they can succeed. But we are certainly going to invest, and you can expect to see more lateral hires in the future.
‘We’ve got to make sure that we focus on the right things over the next few years, to capitalise on the opportunities. It’s everything from M&A to private capital, disputes and mass claims, antitrust, and more.’
Both Sansom and Wills also stressed the firm’s desire to build globally. ‘We’ve always had a really good US practice’, said Wills. ‘But in the past it had been a bit more acting for European or Asian businesses looking to do something in the US. Now, we’re acting for top US-headquartered global companies on their most important US matters.’
‘We have a great opportunity to link together the transatlantic piece of our network’, Sansom agreed. ‘Transatlantic M&A is going to be super important, across a wide range of sectors. But there are other things as well. You look at foreign direct investment control, regulatory work – all of it has become more significant and more complex over the last few years.’
‘On the disputes side, mass claims are going global. We’ve got almost a US-style class action regime growing up here in the UK, and there’s now a real chance of similar claims playing out on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time. Also with regulatory enforcement. Antitrust, too – it’s a hugely challenging global environment.’
