Clyde & Co has promoted 16 lawyers to its partnership, with the majority of new partners coming from outside the firm’s UK home base. 

The number of promotions is only slightly up from last year’s trimmed down tally of 13, which was almost 50% less than a bumper round of 24 lawyers in 2019. 

In total, 11 of the 16 new partners have been made up in the firm’s international offices, including four promotions within the firm’s stateside insurance practice: in Miami, Washington DC, San Francisco and New York. This compares to just one US promotion in Atlanta last year. 

Clydes  also made its first-ever promotion in Latin America, with disputes and international litigation expert Vicente Banuelos Rizo moving up the ranks in Mexico City. 

The firm’s highly rated Middle East offices received a boost this year after being left off the map in 2020, with the firm adding a lawyer to the partnership in both Dubai and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The rest of the international promotions included two in the firm’s Sydney-based cyber practice, as well as one in its personal injury insurance team in Hong Kong. 

Rounding out the new partner class was Stefan Ullrich (insurance) who was elevated to the partnership in the firm’s Hamburg base, which opened its doors in 2019 with a four-lawyer team from Ince & Co as part of Clydes’ expansion efforts in the German market. 

Three appointments in London and one apiece in Manchester and Edinburgh made up the firm’s latest additions to its UK network, its lowest number of UK promotions since 2018.

 Three of the new UK partners were women, with Karen Boto (London), Rebecca Lindsey (Manchester) and Sarah Crewes (Edinburgh) all moving up in the firm’s insurance practice. 

The firm’s flagship insurance practice group saw easily the largest intake of new partners with 12 appointments, with the firm’s corporate, commercial litigation, real estate and marine practices all growing slightly, with one appointment each. 

The firm failed to improve on its gender balance ratio this year, the percentage of women promoted to the partnership falling from 58% to 38% with six women being made up. Last year’s gender balance ratio was the highest since 2016 (50%) and a huge leap up from 2019, when the number of women joining the partnership only counted for 8% of the 24 appointments. 

Matthew Kelsall, Clydes’ CEO, said: “We are proud to see so many of our sector and practice groups represented in this year's cohort, and with over two thirds of promotions outside of the UK, the group represents our truly global nature.

The new partners will be joining an additional 29 laterally hired partners the firm secured over the last 12 months as part of a strong worldwide growth push, including the recent addition of project disputes specialist Philip Norman in London. 

In the midst of the firm’s expansion efforts, it also gained a foothold in Kenya through the opening of an associated office with Kenyan firm Kangwana & Co in Nairobi. 

Clydes unveiled its promotions on the same day that fellow top 20 UK firm Herbert Smith Freehills unveiled a 23-strong list of partner promotions, three short of its partnership round last year that was the firm’s largest ever.

The full list of Clyde & Co promotions

APAC

Richard Berkahn, Sydney (Insurance – Cyber Risk)

Reece Corbett-Wilkins, Sydney (Insurance – Cyber Risk)

Desmond Lui, Hong Kong (Insurance – Personal Injury)

North America

Carly Celmer, Miami (Insurance – Catastrophic Injury & Large Loss)

Cary Economou, Washington DC (Insurance – FI/D&O)

Kimberly Forrester, San Francisco (Insurance – Corporate)

Peter Rossi, New York (Insurance – Speciality & Investigations)

MEA

Michael Ducker, Dubai (Insurance)

Rizwan Osman, Riyadh (Corporate)

LATAM

Vicente Banuelos Rizo, Mexico City (Disputes - Litigation/International Arbitration)

Europe

Stefan Ullrich, Hamburg (Insurance – Marine)

UK

Karen Boto, London (Insurance – IFPD)

Sarah Crewes, Edinburgh (Insurance – IFPD)

Rebecca Lindsay, Manchester (Insurance – Casualty)

Jeremy Stephen, London (Real Estate)

Will Trustram, London (Energy, Marine & Natural Resources)