DLA Piper has unveiled its latest promotions round, making up 65 lawyers to partner. 

The round is in line with last year’s 63-strong cohort and follows bumper crops of more than 70 lawyers in 2023 and 2022. 

The promotions are spread across all of the firm’s practice areas, spanning 39 offices across 18 countries. 

As in previous rounds, the firm’s 1,000-lawyer corporate practice had the largest intake of new partners – 19 this time, followed by 13 in litigation, 12 in finance and six in real estate. Other practice groups include employment (five), IP and technology (five), tax (three) and regulatory and government affairs (two).

Regionally, the US had the highest number of new partners with 23, followed by continental Europe with 20 and the UK with 12, including five in London, among them corporate lawyers Danny Westmoreland, Danny McMann and Lorna Edwards. Mark Browne and Victoria Cooper also got the nod in the litigation and regulatory team. 

Their promotions follow two senior lawyers exiting the London office in recent months, with James O’Donnell, former global co-chair of its investment funds group, leaving for Gibson Dunn and the former head of its UK competition team, Sarah Smith, defecting to Simmons & Simmons. 

The rest of the promotions were split between Canada (five), and Ireland and South Africa, where there were two each.

Charles Severs, international managing partner and global co-CEO, commented: “This year’s cohort joins our firm’s partnership during a time of significant change and opportunity in the global landscape. We are committed to helping our clients navigate these challenges and our 2025 cohort of new partners have been instrumental in delivering this support. We are very proud of them all for achieving this milestone moment in their careers.”

Fifteen of the promotions this time round went to women – 23% of the total. In 2021, the firm set the goal to have a 30% female partnership by 2025 within its international arm, which covers the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions. At the time, women made up 21% of its partnership. That goal was set to increase to at least 40% by 2030.

Like a host of other top firms in the US, DLA Piper’s US arm has been reportedly moving to head off scrutiny by the Trump administration over its diversity policies. 

Bloomberg Law reported last month that the firm had disbanded its minority organisations and affinity groups while Above the Law reported that it had removed preferred pronouns from signature blocks on US employee emails.

The promotions are effective as of 1 April in the US and Canada and 1 May for EMEA and Asia Pacific.

A full list of the promotions can be found here.