Clifford Chance Perth partner and global oil and gas group co-head Tracey Renshaw has left the firm to join DLA Piper's London office – the latest in a string of partner exits from the Magic Circle firm in Australia in recent years.

A corporate lawyer, Renshaw specialises in mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas and mining sectors. In 2017, she represented Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc on a $250 million sale of its Australian aviation business to Melbourne-based oil refiner and marketer Viva Energy Pty Ltd. At Clifford Chance, she led the oil and gas group with London partners Alexandros Panayides and Graham Phillips.

Renshaw joined Clifford Chance as a partner via the 2011 merger with Perth-based boutique Cochrane Lishman Carson Luscombe, where she was one of its seven partners. Previously, she was counsel at Australian firm Allens in Perth, and a senior associate at DLA Piper in London.

The departure of Renshaw leaves Clifford Chance with three partners in Perth: Ben Luscombe, Jennifer Hill and Sam Luttrell – all disputes specialists. Luscombe is also the only remaining Perth partner from the original Cochrane Lishman team that joined Clifford Chance in 2011.

Justin Harris and Paul Vinci both left in 2017 to join Australian firm Johnson Winter & Slattery. Vinci was Perth managing partner from 2015 to 2017; Michael Lishman left in 2015 and joined corporate advisory firm Gresham Partners, then joined Jones Day as a partner in Melbourne in 2018; and Jon Carson, who was appointed Perth senior partner in 2015, and Ian Cochrane retired from the firm in 2017 and 2013, respectively.

In Sydney, Clifford Chance's other Australian office, some founding partners have also exited. The firm opened in Sydney in 2011 by acquiring boutique firm Chang, Pistilli & Simmons. Among the three founding partners, Mark Pistilli and Danny Simmons left in 2016 to start another boutique firm; both then joined the legal arm of Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers; and a third co-founder, Diana Chang, retired from the partnership in April 2018 and remains a senior consultant with the firm.

Clifford Chance has nine partners left in Sydney, including three from legacy Chang, Pistilli & Simmons – Richard Graham, Tim Grave and Lance Sacks. In addition, Hong Kong-based Greater China international arbitration head Cameron Hassall also spends some time in Sydney.

The Magic Circle firm's Australia offices are managed by Sydney-based Richard Gordon. He was appointed managing partner for Australia and of the Sydney office in 2017. He then also took oversight of the Perth office last year after the departure of former Perth office head Paul Lingard, who left to join Norton Rose Fulbright. Gordon joined Clifford Chance in 2015 from Allens.

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