The annual round of partner promotions at City firms looked a lot more international this year as Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May, Addleshaw Goddard, Mishcon de Reya and Pinsent Masons announced who made the grade, while there were also signs the profession is improving its gender diversity record.
Slaughter and May, which last year made up its highest number of international promotions as it elected three Hong Kong associates to partner, made up four partners as part of its London round. With law firms under pressure and pushing to improve gender diversity, this latest round puts the firm in good stead to achieve a more balanced partnership in the years to come, with two of those made up being women. Last year three out of seven London promotions were female.
At Freshfields, just three from its 500-strong army of associates in the City were made up. While its 17-strong promotions round was its biggest in three years, Hong Kong was the biggest beneficiary with four associates across corporate and finance making the grade in a bumper round for its overseas offices. The 14 promotions outside of London are the firm’s biggest round outside of the City since 2012. Six of the 17 were women, representing 35% of the round, but this still marks an improvement on last year when just three from 15 new partners were women.
Both Addleshaws and Pinsents also made bumper promotions last month, with the latter making five appointments outside of the UK, its largest-ever international round as it grew its infrastructure and real estate practices in the Middle East and Asia. Twelve of Pinsents’ 29 partner promotions this year (41%) were women compared to three from 15 in 2014 (20%). Addleshaws doubled its number of partner promotions in its latest round, making up 18 lawyers. Spurred on by a buoyant domestic real estate market, a third of those promoted came from property. All of the promotions came in the UK, with seven of them women, a stark contrast on 2014 when not a single female made the cut in its initial round.
Meanwhile, Mishcon made up three to partner and, notably, all of those were female.
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk