Ashurst has made up 15 lawyers in the firm's first promotions round since the merger of the UK and Australian legacy partnerships.

The appointments, which include five in London and four in Australia, will take effect on 1 May 2014, bringing the total number of partners to 433.

They span practices including banking, securities, competition and corporate, employment, energy, dispute resolution and real estate. 

Outside of London and Australia lawyers have also been promoted in Spain, France and Germany, with one the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and one in the US. There were no promotions in Asia.

Five of the new partners are female, meaning that women now account for 18% per cent of the global partnership.

Last year, the UK arm of the firm promoted 12 lawyers to partner, while the Australian partnership promoted five.

In Australia, Ashurst is in the process of setting targets for female partner numbers, having fallen behind some of the other big six firms such as King & Wood Mallesons, which is aiming to have a 30% female partnership by 2015.

The number of women in the Australian partnership decreased between 2012 and 2013 from 23% to 22%, while the number of partners working flexibly dropped from 16 to nine in the same period.

However, in the UK the firm was the first leading law firm to introduce a target for the number of women in senior positions, when in 2011 it announced plans to have one quarter of its management posts filled by women within the next three years.

"The fact that a third of our new partners are female is encouraging," said Mary Padbury, the firm's vice chairman.

"We are committed to recognising and rewarding the high performance of our people and congratulate them all on their achievement."

The full list of new Ashurst partners are as follows:

• Rafael Baena – Competition, Madrid
• St