Slaughter and May announced on Wednesday that it would promote ten new partners in May: a remarkable feat for a firm that normally makes up only two or three per year.
It is the firm's largest round of promotions since 2000. All ten are in London and eight of them trained at Slaughters. The news means that about 9% of the trainee intake made partner, which compares to under 4% of their counterparts at Freshfields. And it also means they will all now earn a million a year. Bingo.
Although unlike at Freshfields, only one of the ten is a woman. It seems incredible, in 2016, that a major firm would be promoting just one woman in a cohort of ten, and senior partner Chris Saul said that the shocking figure was "entirely accidental". He said that last year the split was 50/50, over the last five years (including this) 30% of new partners have been women and that, as of 10th May, four of the firm's practice heads will be women.
Saul also said that whilst it was an unusually high number of promotions, it was not without precedent. He himself had been one of ten when he made partner in 1986, and he said that there had simply been a large number of exceptional candidates this year.
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It is the firm's largest round of promotions since 2000. All ten are in London and eight of them trained at Slaughters. The news means that about 9% of the trainee intake made partner, which compares to under 4% of their counterparts at Freshfields. And it also means they will all now earn a million a year. Bingo.
Although unlike at Freshfields, only one of the ten is a woman. It seems incredible, in 2016, that a major firm would be promoting just one woman in a cohort of ten, and senior partner Chris Saul said that the shocking figure was "entirely accidental". He said that last year the split was 50/50, over the last five years (including this) 30% of new partners have been women and that, as of 10th May, four of the firm's practice heads will be women.
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The new partners. How it might look. |
Saul also said that whilst it was an unusually high number of promotions, it was not without precedent. He himself had been one of ten when he made partner in 1986, and he said that there had simply been a large number of exceptional candidates this year.