Linklaters’ next senior partner will be a corporate lawyer, with three candidates putting their names forward for April’s elections including rising star Aedemar Comiskey.
The trio of corporate partners vying for the top job, to run the firm alongside new managing partner Gideon Moore, are Charlie Jacobs, Jean-Pierre Blumberg and Comiskey.
M&A heavyweight Jacobs has been tipped as the favourite for the senior partner position since it was revealed incumbent Robert Elliott would not stand for a second term.
Antwerp-based Blumberg is global co-head of M&A and was Linklaters’
Europe managing partner between 2008 and 2012.
The election had been understood to be a two-horse race between Blumberg and Jacobs. Comiskey is understood to be a late entrant and if elected would be Linklaters’ first female senior partner.
She was named in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 2016 for her lead role on multiple billion-pound deals, including Amlin’s £3.5bn acquisition by Mitsui Sumitomo and Visa Europe’s £16.1bn acquisition by Visa, and her involvement in the firm’s Women in Leadership programme.
Linklaters’ Elliott said in a statement: “In Jean-Pierre, Aedamar and Charlie we have an extremely talented, widely respected and diverse group of senior partner candidates who have every ability to excel in the role.”
Moore won a contested election for global managing partner last autumn, stepping into the top job on 1 January. The election followed the early resignation of Simon Davies last May.
