In the latest in a string of departures from Clifford Chance in Australia, partner Jennifer Hill and counsel Sean Houthuysen have left the firm. Both worked out of Clifford Chance's Perth office.

Hill, an energy and resources disputes specialist, left to join the Supreme Court of Western Australia as a judge. She started on June 4, handling commercial-related matters.

She joined Clifford Chance as a partner in 2015, after almost a decade as a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright and its predecessor firm, Deacons Australia. Before that, she practised at Perth-based disputes boutique Bennett + Co, where she made partner in 2001.

Houthuysen left the firm to join Australian firm HWL Ebsworth as a corporate partner. He specialises in mergers and acquisitions, corporate advisory and private markets transactions in the energy and resources sector. In 2015, he advised U.S. oil producer Apache Corp. on a $2.1 billion sale of its Australian oil and gas business to a consortium of private equity funds managed by Brookfield Asset Management Inc., and of Macquarie Capital also in 2015.

Houthuysen had been with Clifford Chance for eight years, having joined as an associate in 2011. He was promoted to counsel in 2014.

Several senior lawyers have left Clifford Chance's Australian offices in recent years. In Perth, global oil and gas group co-head Tracey Renshaw departed for DLA Piper's London office in May; and former office head Paul Lingard joined Norton Rose Fulbright in October of last year.

The departures leave the Magic Circle firm with two partners in Perth: disputes specialists Ben Luscombe and Sam Luttrell, according to its website. Luscombe is also the only remaining partner from the seven-partner Cochrane Lishman team that joined Clifford Chance in 2011 to launch its Perth office. Luttrell was promoted in 2017.

In Sydney, Clifford Chance's other Australian office, several partners have also left the firm in recent years, including two of the three-partner Chang, Pistilli & Simmons team that joined the firm in 2011 to launch its Sydney office. Founding partners Mark Pistilli and Danny Simmons left Clifford Chance in 2016 to start another boutique firm, then both joined the legal arm of Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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