After a dozen years leading Covington & Burling, Timothy Hester is stepping down as the firm's chairman at the end of 2019 and turning the role over to a successor, Douglas Gibson, a top corporate partner whose client roster includes major professional sports leagues.

For Covington, the transition caps a decadelong era of international expansion and revenue growth under Hester, 64, an antitrust partner who was first named chairman in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. The firm avoided layoffs amid the recession and has since doubled in size, opening eight new offices as annual revenue grew from $500 million to more than $1 billion.

In a nearly hourlong interview, Hester and Gibson said the leadership transition marks a handoff to a new generation but would not set Covington on a new strategic course. Gibson, 54, said he expects more measured growth in coming years, with new hiring focused on scaling up the firm's corporate practice in New York and litigation group in California.

"We think the firm is really well-positioned and on a great trajectory," Gibson told The National Law Journal.

With Hester at the helm, Covington opened new offices in Beijing, Dubai, Johannesburg, Frankfurt, Seoul and Shanghai. The moves gave Covington a presence on the ground in countries where large multinational clients are based, Hester said.

"We have seen increasingly that we have built the capability to help clients navigate their most complex government-facing regulatory issues in China, in Europe, as well as in the U.S., and it is hard to find that capability across those three critical jurisdictions," Hester said, adding, "We're trying to be very focused but we do have a large circle of international clients that look to us as a really important resource in the U.S. or in Europe or in China for their hardest matters."

Tim Hester Timothy Hester of Covington & Burling. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

Gibson was hired as an associate at Covington in 1990 and became a partner in 1998. He served as general counsel to Bacardi Limited from 1998 to 2000 before returning to Covington. With a client list that includes Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, he was once named one of the 50 most influential people in sports by the Sports Business Journal. Gibson also represents the Chicago Cubs.

"I've felt very lucky over the course of my career in that, in my client representations, I've focused on two industries: sports and distilled spirits. I like both of them very much," Gibson said.

Gibson said he does not envision the firm seeking out "dramatic growth" internationally in coming years. Even with the international expansion, he said, the firm was "judicious" in opening new offices.

"We do that only when we see real benefits to servicing our clients, and we like having the smallest number of offices as possible, because that helps cohesion within the firm," Gibson said.

"With the offices that we currently have open and where we're currently situated, we feel pretty good," he added.

Covington recently promoted 14 lawyers into the partnership, a group that included nine women. Six of the freshly-minted partners come from ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Hester said the new partnership class stands out as the most diverse in the 100-year history of Covington and reflects the firm's commitment to building a "pipeline of diverse and women lawyers."

"We're going to keep at it," Hester said of the firm's diversity efforts. "The job is never done, and we're going to continue to work hard on it."

Gibson said his commitment to diversity was a key factor in partners being "fully comfortable" with his rise to the chairmanship. He noted that Emily Henn, a Palo Alto-based partner who leads Covington's class action litigation group, will join the firm's three-member executive committee. The firm's eight-member management committee includes three women.

Hester informed partners in the summer of 2018 that he would not seek a fourth four-year term as chairman. Gibson was selected the following fall as the firm's next chairman in what Hester described as a "consensus-building" process. With Gibson recused, other Covington leaders spoke with partners and gauged their support for the transition.

No other partners were floated for the chairmanship, Hester said.

"It was very clear that the partners were 1,000% aligned behind having Doug pick up the role," he said.

As of Jan. 1, Hester will become Covington's chairman emeritus, focusing on building client relationships and on international engagements. He also will continue his antitrust practice, the firm said, and remain active in pro bono matters.