A&O promotes 34 new partners including 4 in Asia Pacific

International firm Allen & Overy has promoted 34 lawyers to its partnership, effective 1st May.

They are across six practice areas of the firm: 11 in Corporate, 9 in Banking, 6 in Litigation, 4 in ICM, 2 in Real Estate, 1 in Tax and 1 in Fuse, the firm’s tech innovation space, with Head of Fuse Shruti Ajitsaria becoming partner.

Sixteen of the firm’s offices are represented, 24% of the new partners are female and two are part-time partners.

“The breadth of this group, both in expertise and geographically, is testament to the growth we are seeing across our global platform,” said global managing partner Andrew Ballheimer said. “It’s fantastic to have such a depth of talent across the firm and I would like to extend the warmest welcome to the partnership to all our new partners.”

In Asia Pacific, there are () new partners: Sarah Wilson (Banking) in Bangkok; Tina LeDinh (Corporate) in Ho Chi Minh City; Aloysius Tan (ICM) in Singapore; and Tokutaka Ito (Corporate) in Tokyo.

Magic Circle firm probed over handling of UBS investigation
Freshfields’ review of how a rape allegation was handled by banking giant UBS is being scrutinised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The UK law firms regulator will investigate after the legal team representing the former UBS employee who made the allegation disputed Freshfields’ finding that the bank had not made fundamental errors in handling the review.

City AM reports that the SRA has opened a file on the magic circle firm.

More young lawyers are suffering mental health issues
Young lawyers are increasingly struggling with their mental health according to a new study.

Almost half (48%) of respondents to a survey conducted by the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society of England of Wales, said that they’d suffered mental health concerns in the past month, up from 38% a year ago.

With more than 93% also saying that they suffered stress in their jobs, poor sleep, anxiety, and fatigue were common. While more than 6% said they had experienced suicidal thoughts.