Camerons promotions see increase on 2008 total

CMS Cameron McKenna has announced its first round of partner promotions since introducing a lower tier of partnership in London.

The City firm is promoting 17 lawyers to partner from 1 May, but all - including the nine promotions in London - will hold the local, or office, partner title.

In previous years associates made up in London would have joined the firm's salaried - or gateway - partner rank, but changes introduced earlier this year mean this is no longer possible.

The local partner title involves some management responsibility but does not grant any voting rights or equity share.

UK lawyers must now pass through the local partner stage previously used across Central and Eastern Europe and regional UK offices, before joining the gateway partnership and then the equity, if successful.

Five of the firm's 60 office partners will join the gateway ranks from 1 May, but as the firm only introduced the position in 2007 no-one is making the jump to equity partnership as partners are expected to stay in the gateway for three years.

Managing partner Duncan Weston (pictured) said: "We have appointed individuals to the role for a number of years outside of London, but this is the first year that nine senior associates in London have been promoted to office partner. All our new partners had to go through a very tough and rigorous process of assessment. The range of their abilities is extremely impressive."

Last year Camerons made up four partners in London out of a total 11 worldwide. This marked a slight increase on 2007 when 10 were promoted.

Camerons partner promotions in full

Gateway partners

• Simon Chandler (Bristol - insurance)
• Agnieszka Deeg (Warsaw - commercial)
• Sarka Robinson (Prague - corporate)
• Rafal Stroinski (Warsaw - corporate)
• Rob Wilson (Edinburgh - energy, projects and construction)

Office partners

• Atanas Bangachev (Sofia - corporate)
• Richard Bull (London - corporate)
• Chris Harvey (London - real estate)
• Kirsty Hick (London - insurance)
• Helen Johnson (London - corporate)
• Takura Kawai (CEE - commercial)
• Milan Kohlrusz (Budapest - commercial)
• Andrzej Krasuski (Warsaw - commercial)
• Jonathan Lisle (London - corporate)
• Ian McGarr (London - banking/infrastructure and project finance)
• Sarah Ozanne (London - commercial)
• Rebecca Schofield (London - banking)
• Jonathan Selvadory (Shanghai - corporate and commercial)
• Peter Simon (Budapest - energy, projects and construction)
• Jonathan Thorpe (London - insurance)
• Malgorzata Urbanska (Warsaw - commercial)
• Philip Woodfield (Bristol - banking)

Click here for a full round-up of this year's partner promotions so far.

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