Elite US firms ramped up their London partner headcounts in October, with Kirkland & Ellis making up a record 97 new partners – equal to more than 10% of its existing partnership – 13 of them in its fast-growing London base, while White & Case’s more modest 31 included seven in its City arm.
The number of London promotions at Kirkland more than doubled last year’s round and its total tally is up on last year’s 81. The 2,000-lawyer US firm has an unusual model in that it makes up large ranks of salaried partners before considering promotions to its tightly-held equity, which at the end of 2016 totalled 359 of its 820 partners.
New City partners include Mark Thompson, Jacob Traff and Rebecca Villarreal, who were all made up in M&A/private equity, while Mark Ingram and Frazer Money were promoted in the firm’s tax department. Jeremy Leggate and Aranpreet Randhawa were promoted in investment funds.
Andrew Butel has been appointed to the firm’s government, regulatory and internal investigations litigation team while Philipp Kurek has been made up in general litigation and Jon Newman has been promoted in arbitration. Rounding out the London promotions are James Simpson (capital markets), Adam Skinner (financial services regulatory) and Christopher Wall (debt finance).
‘New York and London are the focus of our 2020 strategy.’
Oliver Brettle, White & Case
Meanwhile, three quarters of White & Case’s 31 new partners will be based in either London or the US, although this year’s global round represents a 23% reduction on last year’s 40 promotions.
Seven of the new partners will be based in London, making up 23% of the promotions, slightly up from last year’s 20%.
‘New York and London are the focus of our 2020 strategy,’ said London executive partner Oliver Brettle. He cited the promotions of James Greene and James Hardy as part of the ongoing strengthening of the firm’s capital markets and banking capabilities in the City, and Steven Worthington as an addition to the firm’s ‘phenomenal’ private equity London team.
Together with Greene, newly-appointed M&A partner James Johnson first joined the firm as a London trainee. Kamilla Azamat was named partner in the firm’s City project finance practice, Tim Hickman in IP and Rebecca Shorter in international arbitration.
White & Case has the largest City office of US-originated firms for fee-earner headcount, according to our Global London 2017 report, and the firm will have around 110 partners in London when the promotions take effect in January 2018.