Pinsent Masons has doubled down on its gender diversity efforts in its latest 23-strong partner promotion round, four more than in 2021. 

The UK firm’s latest promotions include 11 women, meaning almost half (48%) of the new spots went to women lawyers. This marks a great improvement on last year when the proportion of partner promotions that were women fell to 26% after reaching 46% in 2020. Pinsents said it was in the process of refreshing its gender diversity targets after it narrowly missed its target of achieving a 30% female partnership by 2020 – the number sat around 28% after its promotions in 2021. 

As usual, most of the promotions were handed out on the firm’s home turf with 17 of the 23 spots going to lawyers based in the UK. Two were made up in the firm’s Australian offices, with one apiece in Germany, France, Dubai and Johannesburg.

The promotion in Johannesburg, which went to construction disputes specialist Thomas King, follows the firm’s recent push into the South Africa legal market that has so far seen it absorb two-lawyer property practice Gunn Attorneys in February and hire corporate crime and forensic investigations lawyer Edward James from ENSafrica in January. 

Pinsents chose to highlight its non-traditional legal service delivery team again by promoting Hugo Cassidy, who belongs to the firm’s tech-focused Advanced Delivery group, and Geradline Kelm, who leads account management for the firm’s professional services group Vario in the UK and Asia Pacific. 

Last year, the firm promoted Vario head Matthew Kay to partner, a move that marked the third partnership promotion to be made outside of traditional legal services following the promotions of Hayley Boxall and David Halliwell in 2020. 

Senior partner Richard Foley said: “The provision of legal services has evolved beyond black letter law, and we’ve seen the benefit of combining stellar legal expertise with innovative, creative client-led solutions from across a broad suite of industries. Pinsent Masons has been at the forefront of this evolution and I’m proud to see that our 2022 cohort of new partners specialise in a range of legal and professional expertise from across our multinational network."

The promotions had a distinct focus on energy and infrastructure, with three of the five lawyers made up in the international arbitration practice – Clea Bigelow-Nuttall, Florian Quintard and King ­– members of the energy and infrastructure team and another, Daniel Gardiner, part of the energy team. 

Employment law specialist Claire Scott and corporate lawyer Brian Thumath were also made up in the energy practice in the UK along with Valerian von Richthofen in Düsseldorf, while the energy and infrastructure team welcomed property specialist David Ross in the UK and Louise Santos and Gemma Thomas in Australia.

The final international arbitration promotion went to Dubai-based Seema Bono, a member of the technology, science and industry team, which also gained a trio of new partners in the UK: IP litigators Tom Nener and Mark Marfé and corporate and M&A specialist Sunjay Malhotra. 

The financial services practice welcomed a quartet of partners, with Kate Hardwidge, Alexis Hayworth and Mhairi Morrison moving up the ranks in London and pensions specialist Cameron McCulloch getting the nod in Glasgow. Pinsents’ real estate practice added Richard Bartle to its dispute resolution team in London and litigator Katherine Metcalfe in Glasgow, with the promotions completed with that of pensions services head Christina Bowyer. 

Pinsents posted a 16% increase in profit per equity partner last July for the previous financial year against a 1.5% increase in revenue to break through the £500m benchmark. The hike in PEP to £636,000 marked an eye-catching rebound from the year before when PEP fell by 12% to £546,000. 

A full list of the promotions is as follows:

Richard Bartle – Real Estate (UK)

Clea Bigelow-Nuttall - International Arbitration, Energy & Infrastructure (UK)

Seema Bono – International Arbitration, Technology, Science & Industry (Dubai)

Christina Bowyer – Pinsent Masons Pensions Services (UK)

Hugo Cassidy – Advanced Delivery Team (UK)

Daniel Gardiner – International Arbitration, Energy (UK)

Kate Hardwidge – Financial Services (UK)

Alexis Hayworth – Financial Services (UK)

Geraldine Kelm – Pinsent Masons Vario (UK)

Thomas King – International Arbitration, Energy & Infrastructure (Johannesburg)

Sunjay Malhotra – Technology, Science & Industry (UK)

Mark Marfé - Technology, Science & Industry (UK)

Katherine Metcalfe – Real Estate (UK)

Cameron McCulloch – Financial Services (UK)

Mhairi Morrison – Financial Services (UK)

Tom Nener - Technology, Science & Industry (UK)

Florian Quintard – International Arbitration, Energy & Infrastructure (France)

David Ross – Energy & Infrastructure (UK)

Louise Santos – Energy & Infrastructure (Australia)

Claire Scott – Energy (UK)

Gemma Thomas – Energy & Infrastructure (Australia)

Brian Thumath – Energy (UK)

Valerian von Richthofen- - Energy (Germany)