International firm eyes growth with new leadership role

The international expansion plans of US-headquartered firm Goodwin Proctor will be led by a newly-created role of managing director of international operations.

Uli Kleinsteuber joins the firm from Linklaters, where he was most recently COO of its EMEA region. He will be based in London reporting to COO Michael Caplan.

The creation of the Managing Director of International Operations position aligns with Goodwin’s continued expansion across our key practice areas and industry verticals globally,” said Caplan. “As Goodwin’s international lawyer and client base has grown significantly over the past several years, we have been building out our global operations team to support the firm’s expanded international operations with top business of law talent.”

Kleinsteuber will partner with Goodwin’s European Chair, the firm’s London, Paris, Frankfurt and Hong Kong Chairs, and Chief Officers across all of the firm’s non-U.S. operations, including finance, IT, HR, office administration and marketing, and all associated day-to-day functions.

Insurance takes the largest number of new partners with 6, but corporate, employment, real estate, and marine, all gained. The firm’s total number of global partners now exceeds 400 across 50 offices.

In Asia Pacific, Thomas Choo becomes a partner in the corporate/employment team in Singapore.

The poll asked those named as Acritas Stars, who are nominated by in-house counsel, several questions including some relating to their compensation.

The mean average pay for male partners was 27% higher than for female equity partners among 828 Acritas Stars. The median gap was lower at 19%.

“It is astonishing to see such a large gender pay gap at equity partner level,” commented Lisa Hart Shepherd, CEO at Acritas. “For women that have achieved equity partner status, they should be facing a more equal playing field but clearly this is not the case.”

The study did consider that women have often been partners for fewer years than male colleagues, and that more women work in lower paid practice areas. However, even after normalising the data to consider these factors, there is still a gender pay gap among equity partners.

The firm’s research also found that male counsel are more likely to choose men as lead partners, again contributing to their higher compensation.

“By rebalancing and broadening the criteria used to determine compensation to allow for this bias, firms may be able to create fairer reward,” added Hart Shepherd. “In the longer term, law firms need to find a way to break through social networks, both inside of the firm and with clients, to enable female partners to get more equal exposure to clients.”