Clifford Chance Senior Partner Popham to Step Down From Post in December

Stuart Popham, the senior partner of the U.K.’s highest-grossing law firm, Clifford Chance LLP, will step down from the elected post in December and retire from the firm next year.

Popham, 56, has worked at London-based Clifford Chance for 35 years and previously headed the firm’s global finance practice. An election will be held to determine his successor as senior partner, a role he held for eight years, he said today in an e-mail. The voting will begin this month, said Anna Ward, spokeswoman for the firm.

He is also the chairman of TheCityUK, a lobbying group that promotes the financial-services industry for the City of London Corporation. Popham joined Prime Minister David Cameron as part of a U.K. delegation to India in July that included 39 business leaders and cabinet members.

Clifford Chance, whose clients include many major U.S. and U.K. banks, regained its spot as the highest-grossing U.K. firm this year. The firm’s revenue fell 5 percent to 1.2 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) for the fiscal year ended on April 30. Profits per partner rose 25 percent to 933,000 pounds after falling 37 percent the previous year.

To contact the reporter for this story: Lindsay Fortado in London at lfortado@bloomberg.net.

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