London law firm Constant & Constant has appointed Paris-based sole practitioner Ferdinand Vroom as a partner in its Paris office.

Vroom has merged his practice with Constant & Constant to specialise in international shipping, transport and finance law.

He qualified as an English solicitor in 1977, was admitted as an avocat in 1993 and ran his own firm, Cabinet Vroom, after spells as an assistant at Linklaters & Paine and in-house counsel at Banque Worms.

Constant & Constant is an internationally-based firm which was founded as a shipping practice. It has a support office in Murmansk in Russia and associations with a US legal practice in Atlanta, Georgia.

Vroom, who took up his post at Constants last month, said: “Working in international finance shipping, one needs to ensure that one always has to have access to competent assistants.

“As a sole practitioner it is hard to constantly recruit suitable young employees for these positions. It needs a larger organisation with the resources to recruit. That is the main reason why I joined Constants.”

US firm Shearman & Sterling has announced the appointment of nine of its attorneys to partnership. Two of the new partners will be part of the practice's Asian operation and will be located in Hong Kong and Tokyo.