Freshfields surpasses the gender objective for a third time in latest partner promotion round

• Aparna Sreevalsan
• 18 April, 2023

FRESHFIELDS Bruckhaus Deringer, the Magic Circle law firm has promoted 30 attorneys to partnership, three more than last year, with women accounting for more than half of the cohort this year.

The magic circle business has surpassed its diversity goal of at least 40 per cent of new partners being women for the third year in a row, having achieved 41 per cent last year and 50 per cent in 2021. This is due to the 53 per cent of female promotions.

This is a significant improvement from 2020, when just four (19 per cent) of the cohort’s 21 members were female.

Five of the 16 who made the cut this year are from London: antitrust lawyer Jenny Leahy, disputes lawyers Cat Greenwood-Smith and Emma Probyn and transactions lawyers Rachael Annear and Jenny McIvor.

Disputes lawyer Amani Khalifa, who will divide her time between Riyadh and Dubai, transactions expert Tomoko Nakajima in Tokyo, people and reward lawyer Sarah Ghulamhussain in Silicon Valley, and tax lawyer Tanja Walter-Yadegardjam in Frankfurt are other women who have joined the partnership.

The full list of new partners is given below:

Antitrust, Competition and Trade

• Rikki Haria, London
• Jenny Leahy, London

Dispute Resolution

• Stephanie Brown Cripps, New York
• Dan Cendan, New York
• Brock Dahl, Washington
• Cat Greenwood-Smith, London
• Amani Khalifa, Riyadh/Dubai
• Laura Knoke, Berlin/Hamburg
• Federico Mercuri, Rome
• José Luis Prieto, Madrid
• Emma Probyn, London
• Lutz Riede, Vienna/Düsseldorf
• James Roberts, London
• Samantha Tan, Singapore
• Elisabeth Weber, Munich

Global Transactions

• Rachael Annear, London
• Elizabeth Bieber, New York
• Toby Bingley, London
• Scott Blumenkranz, Silicon Valley
• Mark Brewer, London
• Tom Godwin, London
• Steffen Kleefass, Frankfurt
• Maximilian Lasson, Munich
• Jenny McIvor, London
• Tomoko Nakajima, Tokyo
• Verena Nosch, Munich
• Andy Robinson, London
• Marie Roche, Paris

People & Reward

• Sarah Ghulamhussain, Silicon Valley

Tax

• Tanja Walter-Yadegardjam, Frankfurt

Georgia Dawson, Freshfields’ senior partner, said: “[The new partners] all bring varied experience and insight and deliver fantastic outcomes for our clients. With the addition of these new partners, we continue to strengthen our global offering and our efforts to deliver long-term success for the firm around the globe.”

With 18 per cent of its new UK and US partners identifying as members of an underrepresented group, the company is likewise on course to meet its race and ethnicity goals, exceeding its UK objective of 15 per cent and falling just short of its US aim of 20 per cent.