A clutch of top 50 firms including Halliwells, Barlow Lyde & Gilbert and Watson Farley & Williams have announced their new partner promotions this week.
The trio are the only three out of eight firms announcing over the last week to report an increase in partner promotions this year, with the majority promoting fewer partners this year than last.
National firm Halliwells has made up seven new partners compared with six in 2007, taking its total partnership to 162. The promotions include four in Manchester and one apiece in Sheffield and Liverpool. The firm is also making up one real estate partner in London, where it carried out a redundancy consultation after deciding to refocus the practice around property, corporate recovery and dispute resolution.
Watson Farley, meanwhile, has promoted a record nine new partners after making up just one in 2007. The promotions, which include five in London and one each in Bangkok, Paris, Rome and Singapore, come just months after the firm’s merger talks with Chadbourne & Parke collapsed. At that time managing partner Michael Greville said expanding the London office was a key priority.
Greville told Legal Week: “It is extremely good news. We think our business is strong enough and this demonstrates constant growth.”
Barlows has also moved to rebuild its practice after a series of partner departures in recent months, including those of Clare Canning to Mayer Brown and Simon Robert-Tissot to Climate Change Capital.
The firm has promoted eight lawyers to its partnership, up from seven the previous year. Seven of the new partners are for the firm’s City practice, with the remaining addition in Hong Kong.
Barlows has bolstered its core disputes team - affected by several departures - with the addition of five new partners, while the pensions, corporate and commercial technology groups will each receive one new partner.
Barlows senior partner Richard Dedman (pictured above) said: “We are in such a strong position and seeing a rise in insurance disputes. We have put a premium on litigation and hired lawyers with wide-angled skills. Our employment team is experiencing a lot of growth and we will develop that and we are looking to regrow our commercial technology group.”
In contrast, top 10 City firm Norton Rose leads a pack of firms that are announcing a fall in newly-promoted partners, with 16 new partners joining its partnership on 1 May, down from 23 in 2007.
In keeping with other City players, the firm used the promotion round to bolster its international presence, with just five of the promotions coming in the City. The remainder are spread across the firm’s Munich, Amsterdam, Dubai, Brussels, Prague and Shanghai offices. Only one of the 16 new partners is female.
Norton Rose chief executive Peter Martyr denied that the drop reflected any pattern, saying: “There are no trends here. There are a few less than last year but we made the ideal people into partners and it absolutely reflects our intentions to bulk up the critical mass.”
Shoosmiths, Pannone, Mishcon de Reya and Stephenson Harwood have all joined Norton Rose in reporting a drop in new partner promotions. Shoosmiths has made up eight new partners, down from 10 last year, while Stephenson Harwood has made up four compared with seven in 2007. Pannone has promoted nine new partners compared with 11 last year with Mishcons making up two, down from five last year.
Meanwhile, Denton Wilde Sapte has announced that it has made up 12 new partners in this year’s promotion round - matching last year’s tally. The firm has promoted six associates to partner in London, in addition to one in Milton Keynes, with further promotions coming overseas in Moscow, Paris, Istanbul and Muscat.
All but one of the promotions are effective from 1 May, with Istanbul corporate lawyer Stephanie Beghe Sonmez stepping up to partner from 1 September, when the firm will have a total of 181 partners.
Keep up to speed with all the latest promotions news with the Legal Week Wiki partnership round special.
