Top 10 US firm White & Case has elevated 45 lawyers to partner in its latest promotions round, its largest since 2022.
Effective on 1 January 2026, the round is spread across 20 of White & Case’s 43 global offices and 12 practice areas.
“The round demonstrates the strength we have globally and across our core practices of arbitration, capital markets, finance, litigation, M&A and project development,” said Carina Radford, a member of White & Case’s executive committee. “It also showcases growing industries for our firm such as energy and infrastructure, private capital and technology, where we see growing client work and these new partners really add to our capabilties.”
The cohort includes 15 women – one-third of the total, up from 22% of the cohort that made partner at the start of this year and more in line with 2024 when women made up 36% of the 42-strong group.
Regionally, the new class saw 12 make the cut in the Americas, 28 in EMEA and five in Asia Pacific. All of the Americas promotions were in the US, where four were made up in New York, three in Chicago, two in Washington DC and one each in Los Angeles, Houston and Boston.
The firm’s 400-lawyer London office saw the most promotions, with nine, including M&A duo Joshua Crawley and Irina Fogarty. The rest of the London promotions were spread across project development and finance, real estate, international arbitration, debt finance and real estate. Anna Lilley, who is deputy general counsel, head of regulatory and corporate governance, also made partner in London in the office of the general counsel.
The firm’s London office has seen significant lateral activity this year, losing an energy and infrastructure team to Paul Hastings and a high-profile trio of infrastructure partners to Milbank in April. At the same time, it has strengthened in other areas, including in private equity with three senior lawyers hired from Ropes & Gray, and in tax with a pair of partners hired earlier this week from Paul Hastings.
Inigo Esteve, executive partner of White & Case’s London office, noted the firm had made 45 lateral partner hires in London since the start of 2021 and promoted 37 London lawyers to partner across its five most recent global rounds.
“Around one-fifth of the promotions this time are in London, which speaks to the city’s importance as a hub for global legal and financial markets,” Esteve said. “The London promotions reflect the global cohort, in that a lot of the new London partners are serving key clients for the firm and key industries in terms of energy and private capital.”
Esteve added: “Four of the London partners promoted in the latest round were formerly trainees at the firm, which speaks to the strength of our trainee programme and the commitment the firm has to helping lawyers develop.”
The rest of the firm’s EMEA promotions were spread across Stockholm, Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Milan, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh and Johannesburg. Meanwhile the APAC promotions were split between Hong Kong, where there were three, and Melbourne, where energy and infrastructure specialist Paul Marshall and M&A lawyer Girish Rao made the cut.
Like last year, the firm’s M&A practice has the most new partners, with 14 promotions spread across 10 countries. That was followed by six in its debt finance practice and five in its project development and finance practice. There were also three promotions apiece across international arbitration, litigation, antitrust and capital markets, and two each in the real estate practice and the office of the general counsel. Finally there was a single promotion each in financial restructuring, trade, employment and IP.
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