Internal promotions

Laterals

Intake as percentage of partnership 2005-06: 7

New female partners as percentage of intake 2005-06: 20

Firms recruited from: Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Clifford Chance, Denton Wilde Sapte, Dewey Ballantine, DLA Piper, Finers Stephens Innocent, Jones Day, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Hammonds, Linklaters, Norton Rose, Osborne Clarke, Richards Butler

Equity structure: 65 equity partners, 76 non-equity partners

Practice area(s) most heavily promoted: Finance/projects

At no time since Berwin Leighton’s and Paisner & Co’s merger to form Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) have internal candidates outnumbered laterals.

In the past three years, BLP has made nearly double the number of lateral hires compared with internal promotions for the same period. Since 2003-04 it has hired 28, while giving 17 internal candidates the nod. (These figures do not include any lateral hires made in 2006, which include the Dewey Ballantine London projects team.)

Even in 2002-03, when BLP was not the aggressive mid-market player that it is now, internal candidates did not outnumber laterals; there were 12 appointments in total that year, and they were split 50-50.

The best year for internal candidates was 2004-05, when nine made it into the partnership. But even then, internals were fewer than laterals, which numbered 10.

Finance/projects (including asset finance, projects, PFI and property finance) has been the biggest area for external partner candidates. It has accounted for just under a third of all the firm’s laterals in three years – nine out of 28. Indeed, BLP is currently hiring in external finance/projects partners at a rate of three per year. This easily beats the internal candidate numbers, which have totalled five in the past three years: two in 2003-04, two in 2004-05 and one in 2005-06.

Corporate assistants at BLP have had a particularly lean time of it. In three years, the firm has promoted two, while offering partnership to eight external candidates in the same period – four in 2005-06 alone.

Things look tough for litigators too. The most recent internal promotion, which was in reinsurance, was in 2003-04.

BLP has made some eye-catching real estate laterals in the past three years, most notably Robert McGregor from Clifford Chance and David Battiscombe from Finers Stephens Innocent. Indeed, over the past three years BLP has relied heavily on external hires even in this, its core area, making up five internal candidates compared with seven laterals. That partner hiring came to an abrupt halt in 2005-06, when not one real estate partner was appointed.