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Atlanta law firms promoted more lawyers to partner this year, continuing an upward trend, while women made up a significantly higher percentage of the new partner class in the city.
Women made up 45% of the city's partner promotions—a major jump from 31% last year—for the 82 promotions that the Daily Report tracked this year at 29 Atlanta firms.
Most of the promotions tracked for this report were at big national and regional firms, such as King & Spalding, Alston & Bird, Seyfarth Shaw and Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, but the list includes local plaintiffs and defense boutiques, such as, respectively, Fried Rogers Goldberg and Weathington McGrew.
Several of Atlanta’s largest firms markedly increased the number of women they promoted to partner this year. Of Alston & Bird’s nine new Atlanta partners, for instance, six were women. (Last year Alston promoted only three women out of eight new Atlanta partners.)
King & Spalding promoted 13 lawyers in Atlanta—and five were women. That’s up from zero women last year of the firm’s seven Atlanta partner promotions.
That sharply pushed up the overall percentage of women, because the eight largest Atlanta-based firms accounted for almost half (45%) of the 82 Atlanta promotions: King & Spalding, Alston & Bird, Troutman Sanders, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, Eversheds Sutherland, Smith Gambrell & Russell, Morris Manning & Martin and Arnall Golden Gregory.
Other firms with large Atlanta offices also promoted more women. At Seyfarth Shaw and Carlock Copeland & Stair, for instance, three of each firm’s five newly promoted partners were women.
Consistent with the steady growth in revenue and profit at Atlanta’s largest firms, they continued to increase the size of their new partner classes. The same group of eight large Atlanta-based firms collectively increased their new partner classes by 10%, for a total of 95 new partners nationally. Of those, 45% were in Atlanta.
As in past years, the new Atlanta partners are mostly graduates of Southern law schools, making up 77% of the total. The top schools for this year’s class were the University of Georgia (13), Georgia State University (12), Mercer University (7), the University of Virginia (5) and Emory University (4).
Asian-Pacific Americans
The Daily Report did not track promotions by race or ethnicity, but Asian-Pacific Americans gained critical mass, accounting for six new partners and making up 7% of the total new partner class.
All were male: Suneel Gupta of Baker Donelson, Dennis Hom of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, Daniel Huynh of Morris Manning & Martin, Robert Lee of Troutman Sanders, Naveen Ramachandrappa of Bondurant Mixson & Elmore and Patrick Ryan of FordHarrison.