Bird & Bird has made up its largest-ever haul, with 14 new partners — doubling its 2007 count — with the London and German practices receiving the biggest share with four partners each.
Field Fisher, meanwhile, made up six new partners — up from four last year — with all of the promotions in the firm’s City headquarters. The new partners are spread across the firm’s corporate, intellectual property, technology and employment practices and add to 14 lateral hires over the year — including former Bird & Bird chairman Hamish Sandison.
The pair join national firm Hammonds and Clyde & Co in promoting significantly more partners this year than last.
Eversheds, meanwhile, has announced static promotion numbers for 2008, equalling last year’s total of 30 new partners.
Commenting on the promotions, Bird & Bird chief executive David Kerr (pictured left) said: “It is not always that easy to predict the size of the talent pool you have coming up for partnership, and this year there were a lot. We have grown from around 150 at this stage last year [to 187], which is a substantial hike.”
In contrast, Slaughters and Lovells have each seen a drop in partner promotions since last year. Slaughters is making up four associates, down from five last year. Three of the new partners are female, which means that almost a fifth (19%) of the firm’s partnership are now women.
Lovells, meanwhile, is making up 18 associates — a significant fall from last year’s record haul of 31. Six new partners have been made up at the firm’s
Lovells senior partner John Young said: “To maintain the numbers that we promoted last year would be artificial. This year’s round is a reflection of where we are with our people and who is ready for partnership.”
Keep up to speed with all the latest promotions news with the Legal Week Wiki partnership round special.
