Macfarlanes has announced a four partner-promotions round for April 2026, balanced across four practice groups.
Alex Evans was promoted in dispute resolution, while Hannah Kalveks was elevated for her private client work. Ryan Moore’s work in finance was recognised, as was Kirti Tiwari-Mehta in employment. Half the cohort are women.
The four promotions are a reduction from the nine partners made up in 2025 – its largest round since 2019. Over the past 10 years, annual promotions have ranged from two to nine, placing 2026’s intake within the firm’s median range.
The 2026 class’s practices reflect areas of current demand. Evans, as a litigator, specialises in competition disputes and other complex contentious matters and has acted on a number of significant class action claims within the UK’s busy collective redress regime, alongside a busy commercial disputes practice.
Kalveks provides advice on a range of private client issues, including tax matters affecting international clients, HMRC enquiries, asset structuring and related governance, as well as estate and succession planning.
Moore advises credit funds, institutional investors, private capital managers, banks and alternative lenders on a wide range of domestic and cross-border financing transactions, mirroring the demand for lateral hires in London in this busy area of practice.
His experience includes fund subscription lines and fund leverage facilities, asset-backed lending and structured financing arrangements such as warehouse financings, forward flow structures and investor-side significant risk transfer transactions, as well as other specialised financing matters.
Macfarlanes recently opened a representative office in New York, led by former managing partner Julian Howard, with Moore and other partners supporting it with the aim of building the firm’s business in that sector.
Tiwari-Mehta advises on employment law matters, including senior appointments and departures, carried interest and co-investment arrangements for its private capital clients. She also advises on TUPE regulation, restrictive covenants and restructurings, with employment being one of Macfarlane’s City strengths.
Sebastian Prichard Jones, in his final promotions round before stepping down as senior partner to hand over to Damien Crossley next month, welcomed the new partners, adding: “We continue to see exciting opportunities for growth right across our practice areas.”
The new partners were, he said, drawn from a combination of areas of its traditional strengths and more recent growth, adding: “I am confident that our new partners will drive the business forward.”
Last month the firm made a lateral partner hire, welcoming tax disputes lawyer Kate Ison from BCLP. But it also lost tax partner Alicia Osei to Paul Hastings, as that firm continues to expand its London roster.
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