Magic circle firm Linklaters has promoted 18 to its partnership, favouring London on a regional basis and corporate on a practice group basis.
Magic circle firm Linklaters has promoted 18 to its partnership, favouring London on a regional basis and corporate on a practice group basis.
Unlike rival Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which announced its promotions at the end of March (23 March), Linklaters has favoured its headquarters in this year’s round with six of the new partners – a third – based in London. At Freshfields, just two of its 14 new partners are based in London.
Last year a quarter of Linklaters’ new partners – seven out of 28 – were based in London.
The rest of Linklaters’ promotions are spread across its international network with Brussels, Madrid and Hong Kong gaining two new partners each. The firm’s offices in New York and Tokyo have received one new partner apiece as have Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Moscow and Warsaw.
As was the case last year, the bulk of Linklaters’ promotions have been made in the corporate practice. The group has gained eight new partners. Banking has received four while capital markets, environment and planning, financial markets, investment management, private equity and real estate have each gained one.
The firm’s senior partner David Cheyne said: “Our new partners and counsel are an exceptionally talented group of people.
‘The elections and promotions, which reflect the strength and depth of expertise across the firm, highlight our commitment to strategic investment in our global practice areas to meet clients’ needs.”
In addition to the partner appointments the firm has made up 18 to the position of counsel while 29 salaried partners are to join the equity on 1 May.
This year’s new partners are:
Banking
David Ballegeer, Brussels
Ben Crosse, Madrid
Toby Grimstone, London
Danelle Le Cren, New York
Capital Markets
Andrew Vickery, London
Environment & Planning
Chris Staples, London
Financial Markets
Umesh Kumar, Hong Kong
Investment Management
Markus Wollenhaupt, Frankfurt
Mainstream Corporate
Mike Bienenfeld, London
Simon Branigan, London
Arnaud Coibion, Brussels
Tim Johannsen-Roth, Düsseldorf
Kim Latypov, Moscow
Samantha Thompson, Hong Kong
Jiro Toyokawa, Tokyo
Tomasz Zorawski, Warsaw
Private Equity
David Holdsworth, London
Real Estate
Jesus Varela, Madrid
Congratulations to all of Linklaters’ newly minted partners, each of whom is bright and must have at the back of his or her mind that he or she is completely dispensable and may be dropped like a hot potato at a whim by Linklaters’ impetuously minded management. Finally your hard work and sacrifice to the (significantly diminished) Linklaters’ brand has been duly rewarded. LOL.