Magic circle firms Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance will defer announcing their partnership promotions for 2009 pending completion of their restructuring programmes.

The two firms are the only magic circle firms still to announce partner promotions this year. Yesterday (6 April), Linklaters announced it will promote 18 to its partnership, while at the end of March Freshfields announced it would promote 14, while Slaughter and May is to promote three.

A spokesman for Allen & Overy said the delay is down to the firm’s ongoing restructuring and redundancy consultation, which is due to be completed at the end of the month. He said that any new partnerships will become effective from 1 May, even if an announcement is made later on.

Up to 82 partners worldwide face the axe under Allen & Overy’s current redundancy consultation.

A spokesman for Clifford Chance said: ‘It makes sense to defer final decisions until the firm has concluded the partnership review that is currently underway.’ However, the spokesman said there is ‘no definitive date’ for this year’s promotion process to be completed.

Clifford Chance is currently reviewing its partnership structure, and has admitted that partner redundancies are likely.