Barlow Lyde & Gilbert has moved to significantly strengthen its partnership, with nine new partner promotions after making just one last year.

The new partners include one non-lawyer, with Dene Rowe promoted from operations director in Manchester to office managing partner. Rowe is one of two new partners in Manchester, with the firm also making up five in London and one apiece in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Broken down by practice are, the promotions see insurance and reinsurance disputes gain four, employment gain two, and professional and commercial disputes and energy receive one apiece.

The promotions round, which follows a turbulent period at Barlows during which a large number of partners have exited the firm, is its largest in recent years, following seven promotions in 2007, eight in 2008, four in 2009 and one in 2010. The firm also made one additional promotion in November last year when Chris Brennan became a partner in the City financial services regulatory team.

Barlows senior partner Simon Konsta (pictured) said: "The size and spread of this year's promotions underlines our commitment to our core markets and our desire for international growth. They also reflect the positive performance of all of our practice areas in 2010-11, and substantially increased profitability for the firm over the last financial year.

"It is also encouraging to see so much homegrown talent rising through the ranks, with almost 50% of this year's new partners having trained at Barlows."

All of the promotions took effect from 1 May.

Barlows partner promotions in full

London
• Humphrey Douglas (Energy)
• Chris Holme (Employment – litigation and advisory)
• Gaby Kaiser (Professional and commercial disputes)
• James Major (Employment – litigation and advisory)
• Ian Plumley (Commercial risk and reinsurance)

Hong Kong
• Antony Sassi (Insurance and reinsurance)

Manchester
• Chris Murray (Casualty and healthcare)
• Dene Rowe (Managing partner [non-lawyer] – Manchester)

Singapore
• Mark Errington (Insurance and reinsurance)