Barlow Lyde & Gilbert senior partner Richard Dedman is to step down from his post this autumn after seven years in the role.
Dedman confirmed that he will be returning to work as a full-time fee earner after choosing to step down just two years into his second five-year term.
The news comes as it emerges that the top 50 UK law firm has overhauled the terms for the senior partner role — reducing the term from five years down to a maximum of three, with each post-holder able to serve no more than two terms.
Dedman told Legal Week: “I am a great believer in not allowing things to get stale. This is a modern era and people are doing maximum terms of two to three years. This is taking the opportunity to make a change.”
The move follows last year’s decision to hand more operational power to the senior partner and chief executive.
As reported in Legal Week in November, Barlows replaced its eight-partner cross-departmental management board with a supervisory partnership council that will review management decisions on a quarterly basis. The firm had already opted to bring in professional manager Clint Evans as its first chief executive earlier in 2007 in a bid to move towards a more corporate structure.
Dedman said: “As the landscape becomes more demanding, we thought that we would modernise the firm. The change has gone very smoothly and we have to give great credit to Clint. It was a lot of work for him but he has won the partners’ confidence.”
Barlows has been trying to rebuild following a spate of partner departures over recent years, including financial services and regulatory partner Chris Warren-Smith to Fulbright & Jaworski and a litigation team led by Clare Canning to the
The firm is also striving to win more big-ticket commercial litigation to complement its core insurance litigation practice.
Earlier this year it recruited corporate partner Simon Gamblin from Covington & Burling and arbitrator Peter Flint from Watson Farley & Williams.
The election to choose Dedman’s successor is expected to take place later this month, with several candidates thought to be up for the post.
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