Offshore law firm Mourant has promoted seven lawyers to partner in its latest promotions round, with another partner joining the firm in Hong Kong from local rival Campbells. 

The new partners include Hong Kong-based James Broad, Jessica Lee and Paul Trewartha, Jersey-based Alex Henderson, Katie Hooper and Mike Jones and Cayman Islands-based Jonathan Moffat. Michael Popkin joins the new cohort from Campbells, where he was a counsel. 

Popkin spent six years at Campbells, having joined from Linklaters-allied Australian law firm Allens in 2015. He specialises in cross-border transactions and disputes, with a focus on contentious and non-contentious aspects of offshore investment funds and trust structures, shareholders’ disputes and insolvency and restructuring matters. 

Including the new appointments, Mourant said it has added 11 new partners in the last six months across all of its offices and practice groups, which ultimately brings the firm’s total partner tally above 60. Some 36% of the new appointments made over the last six months were women, the firm said. 

The earlier promotions included corporate lawyer Alana Gillies, who moved up in Guernsey, and British Virgin Islands-based litigation specialist Shane Donovan. The duo were appointed in September as part of a wider round that saw several promotions in the firm’s affiliated governance services business. 

Mourant global managing partner, Jonathan Rigby, said: “This is a record promotion round, reflecting a period of impressive growth and development for our business. Our new partners bring diversity of thought, training and experience to our partnership which will help us to support our clients as they navigate the increasingly complex legal and regulatory landscape.” 

Broad, Lee and Trewartha specialise in funds, corporate and banking and finance respectively. Broad joined Mourant in 2018 from rival offshore firm Maples and Calder, where he was an investment funds associate. Lee, who primarily focuses on cross-border corporate transactions including M&A and financings, moved across from Linklaters in 2015. Trewartha, meanwhile, joined Mourant in 2014 from Morgan Stanley, where he was a lawyer in the investment bank’s private equity group. 

Jones, who moved up in Jersey, joined Mourant last year from the Jersey Financial Services Commission, where he was director of policy and risk, to help launch Mourant’s consulting arm as the new business’ managing director. He has more than two decades of regulatory experience and has worked at Deloitte, the Australian financial services regulator and funds administrator Crestbridge. 

The other two Jersey promotions went to Hooper, a litigation specialist, and funds lawyer Henderson, who specialises in private equity and real estate investment structures. 

Moffat, the sole lawyer to receive the nod in the Cayman Islands, is a former English barrister who practiced with Outer Temple Chambers in London for four years. He focuses on commercial litigation and insolvency matters. 

In other offshore news, HFW announced earlier this week that it would be taking over the British Virgin Islands office of Bahamas litigation firm Lennox Patton to establish an offshore presence, a rare move for an onshore law firm.