Partner promotions: New hires and promotions at DLA Piper; Corporate and banking hires made at Eversheds

A trio of DLA Piper staff have been promoted to the partnership in the firm’s Sheffield office, with another promoted into the Leeds office of the law firm.

Mark Keeling, who has been with the firm since 1999, has been promoted from the position of legal director in the real estate practice.

Amanda Pilkington, a legal director from the IPT practice, joined the firm in September 2005 and has now been promoted, along with David Beech, formerly a senior associate, who has been with the firm’s corporate practice since August 2005.

The promotions are effective as of 1 May.

Petra Billing, office managing partner for Sheffield, commented on the promotions: “We are absolutely delighted that these three very talented lawyers have been deservedly promoted to the partnership demonstrating the importance of the Sheffield office to the success of our firm around the world and supporting our strategy for growth.

“Securing such capable practitioners reinforces s our vision to become the world’s leading business law firm and allows us to provide the best possible service to our clients wherever they do business . We wish them all the very best in their future with the firm.”

DLA also announced that Andrew McIlhinney has been promoted to partner and will relocate to its Leeds practice. Joining him in Leeds will be Simon Evans, who comes to DLA Piper as legal director from Eversheds.

Allison Page, office managing partner of the Leeds office, said: “We welcome the appointment of Andrew and Simon to the Leeds team; their experience and skills will be invaluable as the Leeds office goes from strength to strength.”

46 lawyers have been promoted to partnership globally by DLA Piper. The promotions were made across many of the firm’s practice areas in 28 different offices throughout 13 countries. Nine partner promotions were made in the UK.

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Law firm Eversheds Sutherland has made several partner promotions in its Leeds office, as part of 20 across the business.

Liz Marshall and Paul Castle have been promoted to partnership in the company commercial group.

Marshall has more than 14 years’ experience with Eversheds of providing procurement advice and working on large scale commercial transactions and five years prior to that in the public sector.
Castle specialises in banking and finance work including corporate refinancing, acquisition finance and real estate finance.

In addition, Chris Buddle in the litigation & dispute management group has been promoted to legal director.

10 of the overall promotions occurred outside of the UK, with new partners in Austria, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and United Arab Emirates.

Paul Cotton, senior partner in Leeds, commented: “Congratulations to Liz, Paul and Chris. I am extremely pleased to see their first class work and dedication recognised – both lead by example with clients and colleagues alike and their promotion is a reflection of our continued growth and investment in the Yorkshire region and Northern Powerhouse region as a whole.”

Lee Ranson, CEO, commented: “I am very pleased that we are able to reward the hard work, leadership and client commitment shown by colleagues across such a broad geographic spread – this speaks volumes about the strength in depth across the group.”