Osborne Clarke appoints new legal director in Thames Valley

International legal practice Osborne Clarke has appointed a new legal director in its Thames Valley office.

Vicky Dudding co-leads Osborne Clarke's corporate structuring and simplification team and has particular expertise in complex corporate reorganisations, restructures and demergers.

The firm, which has its Thames Valley office in Reading's Forbury Road, has appointed a total of seven new partners and three legal directors across its three UK offices in London, Bristol and Reading.

Robert Wood, partner and head of Osborne Clarke's Thames Valley office, said: "I'd like to congratulate Vicky on her promotion. Her dedication and strong leadership in supporting our clients and colleagues has really driven our business performance. I look forward to seeing the impact she will make as a future leader at OC."

The firm has also made a number of international partner promotions as of 1 January 2021: Robert Hunter, an international arbitration expert, Till-Manuel Saur, a venture capital specialist in the technology, media and communications and financial services sectors and Rouven Siegemund, a corporate law specialist across the technology, media communications and energy and utilities sectors who all joined the partnership in Germany. Meanwhile Coen Barneveld Binkhuysen, an expert in commercial contracting with a focus on the technology, media and communication sectors, was also promoted to the partnership in The Netherlands. Lucie Mongin-Archambeaud, a specialist in business crime, ethics, litigation and crisis management was promoted in France and employment law specialist Arjun Paleri was promoted to partner at BTG Legal, Osborne Clarke's Indian relationship firm.

Alongside the promotions, Osborne Clarke is sharing its most recent Gender Pay Gap Report, with data from April 2020. This is the firm's fourth year of reporting gender, ethnicity and partner pay gaps.

Ray Berg, UK managing partner at Osborne Clarke, commented: "We've published our report at the same time as our promotions, because while we celebrate our incremental achievements – promoting at least 40% women into the partnership during the last three years – we also recognise the broader picture remains largely unchanged. Over the last year, we've doubled down on our commitment to create a more diverse and inclusive firm.

"One of the key improvements we've made is to establish our new governance board, the diversity champions forum, chaired by a member of our executive board. They're working closely with our expanded D&I team to accelerate change over the next four years. We have also created a gender task force to tackle the pay gap, are undertaking an independent review of our recruitment practices, and will be publishing our race and gender action plans this year."