US giant Latham & Watkins has promoted 44 associates to partner in its latest round, the firm's largest ever, with 27 of the cohort based in the States and the remainder coming from its offices in Europe and Asia-Pacific.  

The round is a marked step up from last October, when the Los Angeles-based firm elevated 33 associates to the partnership globally, and also sees 39 lawyers promoted to counsel. The firm has improved the gender balance of its latest cohort compared to last year, with 18 of the 44 newly-minted partners being women, or 41%, up from last October’s 27%.

Latham’s New York office, its largest, saw the most promotions in the US, with seven being made up. This was followed by the Bay Area, with five, while Chicago, Washington DC and Houston each saw three. Los Angeles and Orange County had two apiece and the firm also gave the nod to M&A-focused lawyer John Miller in Boston.

Capital markets specialist Samuel Rettew has been promoted in the firm’s Austin office, which it opened last month with the hire of a three-partner team from DLA Piper and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati to focus on emerging growth companies, tech and life sciences clients and VC investors.

This latest round also saw Latham buck its trend of not promoting associates in Asia-Pacific, though out of its six bases in the region only two Hong Kong lawyers, Kieren Donovan of the data and technology transactions team and Zhonghua Shi from the corporate M&A practice, were included.

London saw by far the most promotions in Europe, with nine, while in Germany there were two in Frankfurt, Verena Seevers was made up in the transactional tax practice in Hamburg and Anne Löhner of the complex commercial litigation practice made the cut in Munich. One lawyer, Paolo Bernasconi of the firm's capital markets practice, made the cut in Milan and in Paris Simon Lange was elevated in the corporate M&A team.

Almost a quarter of those made up are in Latham’s corporate M&A practice (10), followed by capital markets (8), banking (5) and transactional tax (4).

The rest of the promotions were fairly evenly split, with three in the firm’s complex commercial litigation practice and two each in data and technology transactions, restructuring and special situations, securities litigation and professional liability and healthcare and life sciences.

Practices areas each to have one new partner are: antitrust and competition, emerging companies, IP litigation, executive compensation, employment and benefits, structured finance and international arbitration.

Rich Trobman, chair and managing partner of Latham & Watkins, commented: “I am incredibly proud of our new partners and counsel. This group of lawyers strengthens our firm and our ability to serve clients around the world in industries that are shaping the global economy. We look forward to their future successes and contributions to our clients and our firm.”

In September, Latham became the latest US firm to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for US personnel, setting an 18 October deadline for staff to be fully vaccinated.

A full list of the promotions is as follows:

US

Owen Alexander (Chicago): mergers and acquisitions

Morgan Brubaker (Washington DC): data and technology transactions

Aaron Chiu (Bay Area): antitrust and competition

Christopher Clark (Washington DC): capital markets

Jason Gott (Chicago): restructuring and special situations

Meryn Grant (Los Angeles): securities litigation and professional liability

Jared Grimley (Houston): transactional tax

Darren Guttenberg (Orange County): mergers and acquisitions

Eric Kamerman (New York): transactional tax

J. Jekkie Kim (Bay Area): healthcare and life sciences

Alan Kimball (New York): transactional tax

Kendra Kocovsky (New York): banking 

Ryan Lynch (Houston): mergers and acquisitions

Ross McAloon (Orange County): capital markets

John Miller (Boston): mergers and acquisitions

Kamal Steven Nesfield (New York): banking

Michael Podolny (Bay Area): emerging companies

Rebecca (Reba) Rabenstein (Washington DC): intellectual property litigation

Samuel Rettew (Austin): capital markets

Brittany D. Ruiz (New York/Los Angeles): capital markets

Leah Sauter (New York): mergers and acquisitions

Bret Stancil (Bay Area): mergers and acquisitions

Helena Tseregounis (Los Angeles): restructuring and special situations

Whitney Weber (Bay Area): securities litigation and professional liability

Scott Westhoff (Chicago): capital markets

Monica White (Houston): capital markets

Jooyoung Yeu (New York): complex commercial litigation

Asia-Pacific

Kieran Donovan (Hong Kong): data and technology transactions

Zhonghua (Stephen) Shi (Hong Kong): mergers and acquisitions

Europe

Paolo Bernasconi (Milan): capital markets

Kendall Burnett (London): executive compensation, employment and benefits

Emily Cridland (London): mergers and acquisitions

Robert Davidson (London): banking

Jennifer Gascoyne (London): capital markets

Joseph Kimberling (London): banking

Simon Lange (Paris): mergers and acquisitions

Patrick Leftley (London): structured finance

Anne Löhner (Munich): complex commercial litigation

Alena McCorkle (Frankfurt): complex commercial litigation

Maximilian Platzer (Frankfurt): mergers and acquisitions

Robert Price (London): international arbitration

Verena Seevers (Hamburg): transactional tax

Hendrik Smit (London): banking

Frances Stocks Allen (London): healthcare and life sciences