Two Slaughters partners set to depart in rare exits

Slaughter and May is set to lose two members of its partnership in a rare occurrence at the elite Magic Circle firm.

Finance partner Oliver Wicker and M&A partner Paul Mudie - both Slaughters lifers who joined in 2006 and made partner a decade later - are leaving, according to Law.com, which first reported the news.

Mudie is said to be stepping down for personal reasons, while Wicker’s next move is unclear but understood to have been agreed "by mutual consent".

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Lateral departures from Slaughters’ famously tight-knit (and highly profitable) partnership are rare. The last is understood to be three years ago, when insurance M&A specialist Robert Chaplin joined Skadden, following corporate star Murray Cox’s move to Weil in 2021.

Lateral hires are equally rare. The firm has added just two lateral partners in London in its history - adding pensions specialist Daniel Schaffer from HSF in 2017 and disputes partner Gayathri Kamalanathan from Danske Bank in 2020. Both are still with the firm.

The firm made up six new partners in its 2025 promotion round earlier this year, a small increase on last year's round of five. Slaughters has around 110 partners, according to its Chambers profile. It operates as a full equity lockstep, with partners with the same tenure paid the same amount.