New Freshfields London managing partner Claire Wills

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer corporate partner Claire Wills is set to become its London managing partner, making her one of the few women in senior managerial roles in the magic circle.

She will replace current London managing partner Julian Long in the role, according to three people familiar with the matter. Long, who succeeded Mark Rawlinson as London managing partner in 2014, was previously the firm's London corporate head and will remain at the firm.

The appointment reaffirms Wills' status one of the most high-profile females in the UK legal industry, overseeing an office that has 136 partners and more than 500 lawyers, according to the firm's website. Although other magic circle firms have women on their boards, none have such prominent positions.

Wills, who is the firm's co-head of global financial institutions, has spent her whole career at Freshfields, joining in 1991 and making partner a decade later. She previously co-chaired its partner recommendation committee and was appointed joint head of its global financial institutions sector group in 2014, alongside New York-based global capital markets co-head Valerie Ford Jacob and Frankfurt partner Christoph Gleske.

Wills has acted on major deals for many of the firm's key clients, such as Barclays, HSBC, JP Morgan, the Prudential and Tesco, including Barclays' takeover of ING Direct UK in 2012 and Tesco's £3.7bn acquisition of food wholesale operator Booker Group last year.

In 2017, she and Long co-led the firm's team advising Aberdeen Asset Management on its £11bn merger with Standard Life.

Freshfields' M&A practice enjoyed a strong year in 2018, topping the UK rankings after advising on 60 deals worth a total of $144.4bn. The firm also led the European M&A rankings for the third year in a row, acting on 177 deals worth a total of $343.5bn.