Four candidates race for the role of global chair at Baker & McKenzie

When Eduardo Leite, current Chairman of Baker & McKenzie, steps down from his role this year, one of four candidates will take over the helm at the global firm.

London managing partner Paul Rawlinson, EMEA chair Gary Senior, Latin America chair Claudia Prado and former Paris managing partner Eric Lasry are the candidates up for election to replace Leite who has been on the role since 2010. Prior to taking over as global chair, Leite was the firm´s Brazil managing partner since 2003.

“We have a fantastic and diverse pool of candidates for our next chairman, which is the result of careful succession planning, something we have done well at Baker & McKenzie. It’s an internal process and when we are ready to formally announce the successful nominee we will communicate externally. This should be by the time of our October annual partnership meeting.” Leite said in a statement.

Claudia Prado is the first woman to run for the role since Christine Lagarde, who was Baker & McKenzie’s first female chair and is now managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Prado was managing partner at Brazilian law firm Trench Rossi e Watanabe Advogados, which has a cooperation agreement with Baker & McKenzie. Prado is now the regional chair of the Latin America regional council at Baker & McKenzie, on the firm’s global executive committee and chair of its financial committee and diversity and inclusion committee.

The Latin American Lawyer sat down with Claudia Prado in December 2015 to discuss diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.