Kirkland & Ellis has promoted six lawyers to its partnership in London, its smallest promotions round in the City since 2012, when it promoted five new partners.

The new partners come as part of a global promotions round that has seen 81 associates make the grade around the world, slightly down on last year when the firm made up 90 lawyers.

The new London partners are Susannah Amini in debt finance, Theodore Cardos and Amala Ejikeme in investment funds, Gilles Teerlinck and Tim Volkheimer in capital markets, and Prem Mohan in financial services regulation.

In 2015 and 2014, the firm made up eight partners in London, with seven promoted in 2013.

This year's promotions, which took effect on 1 October, saw the US take the lion's share, with 27 promoted in Chicago, 17 in New York, four in Houston, three in Los Angeles, five in Palo Alto, eight in San Francisco and three in Washington DC.

Asia received a significant boost, with one new partner in Beijing and five in Hong Kong, compared to just one each in Shanghai and Hong Kong last year.

Kirkland operates two classes of partner – share (equity) and non-share (salaried) – allowing it to promote a greater proportion of junior lawyers into its partnership than firms of a comparable size. Lawyers brought into the non-share partnership are typically given four or five years to make share, or find a new home.

The model gives the firm flexibility when it comes to pay packages for major laterals and, on average, awards share partners more than seven times the salary of its non-share partners.

Kirkland & Ellis partner promotions in full

Beijing Jing Li – M&A/private equity

Chicago James Augustyn – Real estate Whitney Becker – Litigation John Berger – M&A/private equity Ian Bushner – M&A/private equity Marianna Chapleau – Litigation Thomas Dobleman – Debt finance Rebecca Fitzpatrick – Litigation Andrew Idrizovic – Debt finance Adam Kaufmann – Intellectual property litigation Evan Knobloch – M&A/private equity Scott Lerner – Litigation Polina Liberman – Tax Jeffery Lula – Litigation Oren Lund – M&A/private equity Martin Martos – Litigation Vishesh Narayen – Intellectual property litigation Allan Pixton – Litigation Omer Rafatullah – M&A/private equity Laura Klein Riff – Litigation Brett Saltzman – Investment funds Katie St Peters – Investment funds Patrick Sullivan – Debt finance Douglas Tedeschi – Debt finance Will Trevena – Litigation Brian Tweedie – Debt finance Diana Watral – Litigation Adam Wexner – M&A/private equity

Hong Kong Daniel Lindsey – Debt finance Derek Poon – M&A/private equity Arthur Tso – Capital markets Judy Yam – Capital markets Henry Yin – M&A/private equity

Houston Kfir Abutbul – M&A/private equity Mark Ramzy – M&A/private equity Bradford Rossi – M&A/private equity Rahul Vashi – M&A/private equity

London Susannah Amini – Debt finance Theodore Cardos – Investment funds Amala Ejikeme – Investment funds Prem Mohan – Financial services regulatory Gilles Teerlinck – Capital markets Tim Volkheimer – Capital markets

Los Angeles Ali-Reza Boloori – Intellectual property litigation Jonathan Faria – Antitrust/competition David Klein – Litigation

Munich Bernhard Guthy – M&A/private equity Wolfram Prusko – Restructuring

New York Andy Barton – Executive compensation Willard Boothby – M&A/private equity Inbal Hasbani – Litigation Alex Henriques – Intellectual property litigation Adi Herman – M&A/private equity Claire James – M&A/private equity Ryan Kane – Intellectual property litigation Kathryn Keves Leonard – Debt finance Adele Maloney Thomas – M&A/private equity James McConnell – Intellectual property litigation Peter McCormack – Antitrust/competition Derek Pease – Investment funds Samara Penn – Litigation Joshua Simmons – Intellectual property litigation Robert Stein – Debt finance Dmitriy Tishyevich – Litigation Jeremy Wilson – Intellectual property litigation

Palo Alto Eric Cheng – Intellectual property litigation Tom Connors – Technology and IP transactions Rodin Hai-Jew – M&A/private equity Navneeta Rekhi – M&A/private equity Lilit Voskanyan – M&A/private equity

San Francisco Matthew Cohen – Investment funds Stefanie Gitler – Environmental transactions Christopher Harding – M&A/private equity Jessica Isokawa – M&A/private equity Robert Kang – Intellectual property litigation Melissa Koss – Restructuring Katie Taylor – Debt finance Steve Yoo – Investment funds

Washington DC Edward Liva – Litigation: government, regulatory and internal investigations John Moran – Litigation Veronica Nunn – M&A/private equity