Ninety-seven lawyers moved up the ranks at Freeths this May, marking the largest single promotion round in the firm’s history.
Eight of those climbed to partner. The rest—89 colleagues spanning seven offices from Glasgow to London—secured promotions across associate, senior associate, and director levels. For a top-50 commercial law firm, the scale is striking.
The numbers cap a five-year stretch of double-digit annual growth. Since 2021, Freeths has expanded steadily, weathering a legal market marked by consolidation and cautious hiring elsewhere. This year’s promotion round dwarfs previous cycles, though the firm declined to specify last year’s tally for comparison.
Among the newly minted partners: Ben Gant in real estate from the Nottingham office, David Laurence handling real estate in London, and Fiona Powell leading employment work in Leicester. Hannah Tessyman takes corporate partnership in Leicester, while Katherine Burge focuses on agricultural property in Oxford. Miles Hacking joins the restructuring and insolvency practice in Manchester, Nikki Aston moves up in family law in Nottingham, and Rahul Kotecha advances in trusts, estates, and tax—also in Nottingham.
Seven lawyers earned director promotions. They include Alex Angelides in tax at Sheffield, Allison Campbell covering real estate in Glasgow, and Andrew Rathi working on housebuilding and strategic land in Nottingham. Dominic Canning takes construction and engineering in Leeds, Emma Conwell handles planning there too, and Fiona Woodhead joins corporate in the same office. Josh Middleton rounds out the group with commercial dispute resolution in Birmingham.
The spread across practice areas and offices reflects deliberate geographic investment. Freeths operates thirteen offices across England and Scotland, competing with national and international firms for mid-market and corporate clients. Its client roster includes Centrica, ENGIE, Aldi, Mercedes-Benz UK, Tarmac, Experian, and Lloyds Bank.
Karl Jansen, the firm’s National Managing Partner, connected the promotions to client demand. “This is a hugely significant promotions round and a great reflection of the strength we have across the firm,” he noted. “Each colleague has played a key role in our continued growth, supporting clients on increasingly complex and high-value work.”
The firm’s profile rose sharply following its representation of 555 sub-postmasters in their landmark High Court case against the Post Office—one of Britain’s most significant miscarriages of justice. Freeths continues advising on subsequent compensation schemes tied to the Horizon scandal, work that brought both reputational capital and a steady stream of complex litigation.
Freeths holds B Corporation certification, a rarity among UK law firms. The designation requires meeting standards for social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability—metrics more common in consumer brands than legal practices. Fewer than a dozen law firms in the UK carry the certification.
“Investing in our people is central to our strategy,” Jansen added, “and this latest round of promotions demonstrates the depth of talent we have as we continue to build for the future.”
The firm has collected awards recently: Law Firm of the Year at both the City AM Awards 2025 and Legal Business Awards 2024, plus a shortlisting for UK Firm of the Year at The Lawyer Awards 2025. It also secured Investors in People Gold accreditation and featured in the Legal 500 Green Guide 2026.
Promotion rounds at law firms typically follow annual cycles, with decisions announced in spring or early summer. The size of a round often signals confidence in revenue pipelines and client retention. At 97, Freeths’ tally far exceeds typical cohorts at comparably sized firms, where rounds of 30 to 50 promotions are more common.
The firm hasn’t disclosed revenue figures for its most recent financial year, though the consistent double-digit growth claim suggests turnover now exceeds £150 million based on publicly available historical data. Partnership expansions of this scale usually follow revenue increases in the 15-20% range.
For the promoted lawyers, the advancement means increased responsibility, client origination expectations, and—for the new partners—equity stakes or profit-sharing arrangements depending on the firm’s partnership structure. Freeths operates a multi-tier partnership model, with both equity and salaried partner tracks.
The question now is whether the pace holds. Five consecutive years of double-digit growth positions Freeths among the UK legal sector’s fastest-expanding mid-tier firms, but sustaining that trajectory through economic uncertainty and talent wars will test the strategy Jansen outlined.
By next May, the market will know whether 97 was an outlier or a new baseline.
