Special counsel Heidi Asten and senior associates Elizabeth Charlesworth, Andrew Griffiths, Richard Wilkinson and Erin Wyeth will all be joining the firm’s partnership from today. All five hail from Herbert Smith Freehills’ projects, environment and planning teams and are spread across the firm’s offices in Melbourne and Sydney. Together with Alison Dodd, who has also been promoted today to executive counsel, women lawyers make up the majority of the out of season promotion round. ‘It [is] particularly pleasing to see that our talented female lawyers have such a strong representation in this round of promotions, and in areas of practice that are traditionally-male dominated,’ commented HSF managing partner for Asia & Australia Sue Gilchrist.

White & Case raid

The promotions come in direct response to a ten-partner raid on HSF pulled off by White & Case in September. The New York-headquartered firm took eight partners from HSF’s Australia offices and two from Asia in order to launch its own flagship office in Australia. Global head of finance, real estate and projects Jason Ricketts said the exits provided an opportunity to reward internal talent: ‘We’ve had a growing pool of very senior, extremely experienced lawyers in those teams and we are delighted that we have been able to provide this opportunity to this very talented group of practitioners.’

Sources: Legal Week; Australasian Lawyer