Only four lawyers made the cut in London – a 50 per cent reduction from the eight promoted last year. However, in total there were nine UK partner promotions, with three in Sheffield, one in Birmingham and one in Liverpool. The proportion of women has fallen to 24 per cent in this year’s round, down from 29 per cent last year, with 11 women made up this year compared to 14 last year. Corporate has received the most promotions this year, with 10 in total, followed by litigation and regulatory with nine, finance and projects with seven and employment with five.

Global success

Those promoted are:

In Europe: Pieter-Paul Terpstra, Eva Einfeldt, Xavier Guzman Guido Kleve, Bjorn Enders, Sascha Morgenroth, Vincenzo La Malfa, Armin Hendrich, Bartosz Matusik, Radu Balas. In the UK: Emma Phillips, Andrew McIlhinney, Chris Chan, Patrick Mitchell, Edward Shaw, Richard Skipper, Mark Keeling, Amanda Pilkington, David Beech. In the US John Ducat, Daniel Simon, Karen Nelson, Brian Hochleutner, Jessica Wilson, Jeffrey Musaffi, Ryan Moreno, Maruti Narayan, Cathryn Le Regulski, Danilo Surdi, Jon Olsen, Ramiro Escobar, Tyler Hollenback, Jennifer Gallo, John Nading, Christopher Steelman, Richard Cruz. In Asia Windson Li and Vivian Liu. In the Middle East: Keith Bullen, Wissam Dagher, Paul McViety, Suzannah Newboult.In Australia: Jock Campbell and Rhys Davies and in Russia: Natalia Vygovskaya.

Simmons promotion round

Meanwhile Simmons made up 12 associates this year, up significantly from lat year’s seven. In IP, Andrew Hutchinson, Darren Meale and Mattie de Koning have all been promoted while  Lucian Firth and Catherine Weeks have both been promoted to the firm's financial services department in London. Felix Zimmerman, professional negligence specialist will now be joining Simmons' commercial litigation team in the City. Finally, Eucharia Bragg has been made up in capital markets and Lawrence Brown has been promoted in information, communications and technology.

Bird & Bird promotions

Bird & Bird also increased its promotions, making up 16 this year, compared to last year's nine – with a quarter of them women. Shing Lo, who was promoted to Bird & Bird's London corporate practice in November is joined by new tax partner Zoe Feller, Craig Giles (London commercial team), Ewan Grist (IP), Bryony Hurst (dispute resolution) and Gabriel Voisin (data protection).

'Important role to play'

Bird & Bird chief executive David Kerr commented: 'My congratulations to all our new partners. Each one of them has an important role to play in helping us achieve our vision of being the number one law firm acting for organisations being changed by technology and the digital world.'