Slaughter and May has become the second magic circle firm to announce its 2011 partner promotions, making up five lawyers in its London office.

The five promotions, which take effect on 1 May, marks Slaughters' largest promotions round in recent years. The firm added two to its partnership in 2010 and 2009, with four in 2008, five in 2007 and eight in 2006.

The new partners are spread across the firm's London corporate and financing practices, with Michael Corbett, Paul Dickson and Adam Eastell (pictured) becoming partners in corporate and Ian Johnson and Richard Jones made up in financing.

These promotions bring the total number of partners at the firm to 125, of which 114 are based in London and 11 are based in Hong Kong.

Slaughters senior partner Christopher Saul told Legal Week: "Five is a good number. Our number of partner promotions has been up and down over the years, but that is not a function of economic drivers. We always promote partners with a long-term view of who is ready in any given year and who will help to drive us forward as a firm."

Four of the new partners trained at Slaughters on training contracts, while Dickson joined from Maclay Murray & Spens in 2005.

Saul added: "Business is robust. The market, however, is still quite fragile and the last couple of months have seen some developments which have added to the uncertainty – the tragedy in Japan, the distressing events in North Africa and the challenges faced by the Euro. There is a relatively uncertain outlook for the wider economy but no doubt these new promotions will help us to keep developing our business energetically."

Freshfields was the first of the magic circle to announce its 2011 partner promotions, when earlier this month (4 March) it made up 20 lawyers across the firm.

As of 1 May, nine new partners will join its City office with three in dispute resolution and two each in corporate, competition and finance.