Lawyers 2,800
Turnover £1.59 billion
Offices 28
The glass ceiling at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer was shattered last September when it became the first of the elite five “magic circle” law firms to elect a woman as its senior partner.
Georgia Dawson, who had been the firm’s Asia managing partner, took up her post this January, succeeding Edward Braham. At the same time, the firm revamped its top jobs, with a trio of partners taking over from the managing partner Stephan Eilers. Dawson, who had split her time between Hong Kong and Singapore, relocated to London when she took charge.
In March the firm set out its five-year global diversity and inclusion targets, which included a drive to double the proportion of women being appointed to the partnership to at least 40 per cent by 2026. In this year’s promotion round the firm easily passed its target, with women making up half of the 22 new partners.
In common with its main City rivals, this Anglo-German firm has come out of the pandemic posting strong results for the past financial year, with revenue and profits per equity partner up 5 per cent. Revenue increased to £1.59 billion and its full equity partners pocketed £1.91 million each.
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This comes after last year’s muted results, which the firm attributed to its investment in a new Bishopsgate headquarters, away from Fleet Street, and the opening of a seven-partner office in Silicon Valley.
Over the year, the firm advised on several landmark, cross-border matters, including AstraZeneca’s blockbuster $39 billion acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals — the largest acquisition of a US company and the largest healthcare merger deal globally in 2020.
Its lawyers advised the London Stock Exchange Group on its $27 billion transformational acquisition of Refinitiv, a data analytics firm. The firm also worked with Malaysia Airlines on its global restructuring, which included the pioneering use of a UK scheme of arrangement for its aircraft leases.
The firm’s lawyers did more than 80,000 hours of pro-bono work, including a successful case for Afghan and Iraqis trying to immigrate to the US and a victory in a landmark decision challenging Jamaican anti-LGBT laws for the Human Dignity Trust.
★ Commended for commercial dispute resolution; company & commercial; energy & renewables; insolvency & restructuring; mergers & acquisitions
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To browse the 200 Best Law Firms 2022, go to thetimes.co.uk/bestlawfirms