Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has become the first of the magic circle to announce its 2011 partner promotions, making up 20 lawyers across the firm.

Nine of the new partners will join the firm's City office, with three in dispute resolution and two each in corporate, competition and finance, including Simone Bono, who joined the firm this month from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

The 11 remaining promotions are spread across the firm's Brussels, Amsterdam, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Moscow, Milan, Paris and Middle East and North Africa offices, with all gaining one new partner apiece, with the exception of Frankfurt which receives two.

Broken down by practice area, the bulk of the new partners are in the corporate practice, which gains seven new partners, with dispute resolution gaining six, competition and finance gaining three promotions apiece and employment, benefits and pensions seeing one promotion.

The promotions round, which takes effect on 1 May, marks a slight increase on last year's 18-strong haul of new partners. All bar two of the 2011 new partners are male.

Freshfields senior partner Will Lawes said: ""All of our promotions are based on practice area need and we feel that this number of promotions is a suitable size to ensure a steady flow of new partners are always coming through the firm.

"Obviously we are disappointed that there were not more women in this round, and it is something we are trying to address to attract more women into the partnership.

"Simone's hire from Simpson Thacher is part of a drive to build our high yield capability and we feel with two partners we are now at a size that is credible."

The new follows the announcement of Hogan Lovells' first partner promotions round as a merged firm last month, which saw the firm's London office gain seven new partners out of a global round of 36.

Freshfields partner promotions in full

Alastair Chapman, competition, London
James Aitken, competition, London
Mark Austin, corporate, London
Oliver Lazenby, corporate, London
Mark Sansom, dispute resolution, London
Andrew Austin, dispute resolution, London
Simone Bono, finance, London
Sean Lacey, finance, London
Sylvia Noury, dispute resolution, London
Michael Rohls, dispute resolution, Frankfurt
Jochen Wilkens, finance, Frankfurt
Rafique Bachour, competition, Brussels
Alexander Doorman, corporate, Amsterdam
Gregor Von Bonin, corporate, Duesseldorf
Patrick Cichy, corporate, Hamburg
Sergei Diyachenko, corporate, Moscow
Fares Al-Hejailan, corporate, Dubai
Roman Mallmann, dispute resolution, Cologne
Dimitri Lecat, dispute resolution, Paris
Luca Capone, employment, pensions and benefits, Milan