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HFW promotes 5 senior staff across Asia-Pacific, including 2 Australian partners
Global law firm HFW has promoted a range of senior staff in Asia-Pacific, in what the firm said is the largest round of partner and legal director promotions in the region in more than a decade.
Lauren Croft
HFW has promoted four new partners and one new legal director, effective from next month.
The news follows the addition of a partner from Clyde & Co, as well as a team of seven, in January this year, after the firm nabbed five partners from fellow BigLaw practice MinterEllison, as well as a team of 15 lawyers, in late November last year as it moved to bolster its regional offerings in corporate, projects, regulatory, and restructuring.
It also follows the firm’s hiring of an employment partner in its Perth office in late May 2023, the addition of a partner from Jones Day earlier that month, and the promotion of four lawyers to senior associate back in March last year.
In Australia, Peter Sadler has been promoted to partner in the firm’s dispute resolution practice and Owen Webb has been promoted to commodities partner.
Based in Perth, Sadler is a general litigator, specialising in commercial disputes in the energy, mining, and industrial sectors, in Australia and internationally. He also advises individual directors and corporate clients on responding to regulatory actions and investigations.
Webb is based in Melbourne and acts on behalf of clients in relation to contentious and non-contentious matters, concerning the international sale and carriage of goods. He specialises in the sale and purchase of commodities, ancillary contracts of carriage (including bills of lading, charterparties and contracts of affreightment), sanctions laws, vessel arrest and maritime personal injury.
In addition, Edward Beeley has been promoted to partner in the Hong Kong office and Suzanne Meiklejohn has been elevated to partner in Singapore. Nicola Hui has been promoted to Asia-Pacific legal director and is also based in the Hong Kong office.
HFW managing partner Jeremy Shebson and global senior partner Giles Kavanagh said that the new promotions would bolster the firm’s growth across the Asia-Pacific region.
“On behalf of everyone at HFW, we would like to congratulate our new APAC partners and new legal director on their promotions. Each have already made important contributions to our clients and our firm and represent the very best of HFW’s culture. We look forward to working with them to continue to drive ambitious growth across the business.
“More than half of our new partners globally are based in Asia-Pacific, and this is our largest round of senior promotions in the region for over a decade,” they said.
“We have ambitious global growth plans, which include building further scale and broadening our strong client offering in Asia-Pacific. We have already achieved significant growth in APAC – increasing our size in the region by more than 70 per cent since 2016. We see plenty of opportunity for further sustainable growth and will continue to invest in our Asia-Pacific business to meet the needs of our clients.”
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
