Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling have announced the first senior leadership roles for soon-to-be-created A&O Shearman.

Allen & Overy’s current interim global managing partner, Khalid Garousha, has been named senior partner of the new firm.

Leading the firm alongside him will be Allen & Overy’s Paris managing partner, Hervé Ekué, who will serve as managing partner of A&O Shearman.

Adam Hakki, current senior partner at Shearman, has been appointed co-chair of the global A&O Shearman board and executive committee, and will also lead the firm’s US business as its chair.  

Shearman’s current global managing partner, Doreen Lilienfeld, will serve as co-managing partner of the new firm’s US business and like Hakki will continue to represent clients in addition to this role.

Garousha and Ekué were among eight candidates in the running to lead the new firm, all of whom were drawn from Allen & Overy – the much larger of the two merger partners.  

Garousha was named Allen & Overy’s interim managing partner last July after his predecessor Gareth Price stood down from the role citing personal reasons. He will succeed Allen & Overy’s current senior partner, Wim Dejonghe, at the start of May on the completion of Dejonghe’s second four-year term in the top job.

The merger to create A&O Shearman was overwhelmingly approved by the partnerships of both firms last October and will forge a transatlantic law firm with revenue of around $3.5bn and nearly 4,000 lawyers across 48 offices.

The appointments are effective 1 May this year. Allen & Overy said that more senior and other leadership appointments for the new firm would be drawn from both firms and announced in due course.