Top 25 UK law firm Osborne Clarke has promoted six lawyers to partner and another six to legal director in its latest UK promotions round across practice areas including litigation, data protection and venture capital. 

The round represents a slight increase on last year, when eight lawyers made partner but only one was promoted to legal director, and also improves on last year’s round in terms of the proportion of women, rising from 44% to 67% this time. 

Conrad Davies, UK managing partner at Osborne Clarke, commented: "We're strategically growing our business to capitalise on opportunities within the UK and internationally. With half of this year's cohort and a number of lateral joiners in the UK during the last year from our disputes and risk practice group, we're investing in talent that we feel will strengthen new and existing client relationships as we go forward." 

Four of those promoted to partner are based in the firm’s London office, including contentious construction specialist Robert Adjetey and Tom Frapwell, who advises financial services clients on international disputes, investigations and contentious insolvencies. Also moving up in London are Nina Lazic, a litigator who focuses on cyber security, contentious data privacy and complex commercial disputes, and commercial real estate transactions lawyer Emma McPeake. 

The partner promotions were rounded out by a pair of lawyers made up in Bristol: Georgina Graham, who advises tech, media and comms, retail and energy clients on data protection and privacy compliance, and James Taylor, who advises on transactions across the spectrum of the venture capital, growth capital and private equity markets. 

Meantime three of those promoted to legal director – Katherine King, Elizabeth Shanahan and Shona Toms – are based in Bristol, Sarah Beard and Jeremy Godley are based in London and the final promotion went to Dawn Troman, who works out of the firm’s Reading office. Their practices cover areas including real estate finance transactions, regulatory, commercial disputes, corporate tax and commercial transactions. 

Davies added: “It's an absolute pleasure to congratulate our six colleagues who have achieved promotion to partner this year. The dedication they have shown to the firm and to our clients has paid off, and this new role marks the next chapter in their careers.”

Osborne Clarke reported a bumper set of financial results for 2021/22 last June, with firm-wide revenue jumping 19% from the previous financial year to hit €407m against an 11% rise in UK profit per equity partner (PEP) to £796k. 

The firm’s UK income increased by 20%, from £166.4m to £199.1m, while UK net profit rose by 14% to £77.2m. 

The firm has been growing its risk and disputes group over the past year, most recently adding property disputes partner Kate New from an in-house role at On Tower UK, patent litigator Trevor Crosse from Marks & Clerk and contentious financial services regulatory specialist Benedicte Perowne from Herbert Smith Freehills.  

Other recent UK partner hires for the firm have included private wealth specialist Patrick Woodissee from TLT and a trio of corporate partners from rivals including Womble Bond Dickinson and PwC.