Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) has announced an enhanced partner promotion round compared to 2019, making up 20 associates.

The tally is up three from last year, with St Louis and London accounting for four promotions apiece. The two cities were the headquarters of the legacy firms that combined in 2018 to create the transatlantic firm: Bryan Cave in the US and the UK’s Berwin Leighton Paisner.

There were 15 promotions in the US in all, also covering its San Francisco, Denver and Los Angeles offices – each recording two promotions – and its Phoenix, Irvine, Kansas City, Chicago and New York arms, where one partner in each office made the grade.

In terms of gender balance, seven of the appointees are women, representing 35% of the cohort, down significantly from 2019 when 10 of the 17 new partners were women (59%).

However, three of the four London lawyers that were voted in as partners are women: disputes specialist Rebecca Campbell, corporate adviser Marie Johnson and financial services litigator Sarah McAtominey.

Just one of the new partners hails from outside the US and UK: Yury Babichev, who specialises in international arbitration and cross-border litigation. 

In terms of practice areas, seven of the new partners specialise in disputes, with IP being the next most popular practice area (three). 

The unveiling of the new partners follows last month’s announcement by the firm of the results of a strategic review which has led to the creation of a transformation office under the leadership of Denver-based corporate partner Sean Odendahl. 

Under its Project Advance strategy, BCLP wants to ‘build scale around existing core areas of practice strength’ while transforming the firm’s operational infrastructure.

It has also created three primary groups: real estate, corporate and finance transactions, and litigation and investigations.

Meanwhile, 2020 has witnessed a series of team hires in Paris, which have boosted the real estate team there to 30 lawyers; the latest being the signing of a seven-strong team from  CMS Francis Lefebvre in September.