Rachel Bond
Macfarlanes

Since joining Macfarlanes in 1997, Rachel Bond has thrived on the level of responsibility given to junior solicitors at the leading corporate boutique. Last year, the Exeter-educated 32-year-old became one of the firm's youngest-ever partners. Bond, who did a year-long stint at Cravath, Swaine and Moore in New York, now often finds herself called upon to advise on trans-Atlantic deals and issues concerning American companies operating in Europe. She acted on the sale of Alcentra to the Bank of New York and advised GE Capital on its acquisition of London City Airport.

Charles Brasted
Lovells

After Charles Brasted, 27, assisted on a recent case, the barrister involved sent Lovells public law group head, Paul Dacam, an email asking him when his colleague was up for partnership. “Like many people he’d assumed that Charles was significantly more experienced than he actually is," Dacam says. "It’s an easy mistake to make.” Despite only having completed his training contract two-and-a-half years ago, Brasted has already played a prominent role in several high-profile judicial review cases, including a challenge to the London Borough of Camden's grant of planning permission for the redevelopment of King's Cross. He has just been selected to head a large team of solicitors acting for the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel in a complex public procurement case. Brasted, who has a master’s degree in international human rights from Oxford, also undertakes regular pro bono work.

Future stars of the Bar 2007

Who are the Pannicks and Sumptions of the future? Meet ten barristers of less than ten years call who may have what it takes

Nazir Dewji
Berwin Leighton Paisner

Nazir Dewji has a talent for bringing in business. Bob Maynard, a partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner, recalls introducing Dewji to a client he was assisting on a corporate matter. “The client was so impressed with Nazir that within five minutes he had agreed to instruct him on a real estate deal that he’d been planning to use another firm on," Maynard says. "The client now uses BLP for all such work.” Promoted to partnership only five years after completing his training contract, Dewji, who was educated at Queen Mary and King's College, has just finished negotiating contracts for the largest gas to liquid project in the world. He is also advising bidders for construction contracts for the 2012 Olympics. The 31-year-old's clients include Tesco, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Oakmayne Properties, the main residential developer involved in the Elephant and Castle regeneration programme.

Andrea Gomes da Silva
Freshfields

Comfortable in four different languages — English, Portuguese, French and Spanish — Andrea Gomes da Silva is every inch the cosmopolitan European competition lawyer. After obtaining a first class degree in modern languages from Oxford, Gomes da Silva converted to law and then joined Slaughter and May as a trainee in 1997. During her time at the firm she was a member of the team that represented Airtours in its successful appeal to the European Court of First Instance against the prohibition of its acquisition of First Choice — the first ever successful appeal against a European Commission prohibition decision. Snapped up by Freshfields’ highly regarded competition team in 2001, Gomes da Silva has impressing clients with her quiet authority. Well-versed in the economic aspects of competition law, she has recently returned from a year-long secondment at Frontier Economics, the UK's largest economic consultancy.

Nicola Hopkins
Linklaters

Nicola Hopkins likes to keep one step ahead of the game. At 17, she was an undergraduate at Somerville College, Oxford. At 22, a trainee solicitor. In May this year, she became the youngest and first female partner in Linklater's highly-rated investment management group. According to colleagues, she possesses "the Full Monty of skill sets". The 31-year-old advises clients such as Morgan Stanley, HSBC and Morley on the establishment of hedge funds, private equity funds and investment trusts. Recently she assissted on the formation of the real estate fund behind the financing of Heron Tower, which is currently under construction on Bishopsgate in the City of London. Her personal skills have also seen her pegged as management material, with a recent stint heading the firm's Hong Kong practice.

Vica Irani
Jones Day

“Quite simply the best up and coming associate I’ve ever seen.” That’s how Russell Carmedy, Jones Day's partner-in-charge in London, describes Vica Irani, a mergers and acquisitions and securities specialist. Irani joined Jones Day in 1998 as a trainee straight from the College of Law, eschewing a gap year, after previously completing a law degree at Bristol University. Praised for her commercial nous and people skills in addition to her brain, Irani has risen rapidly through the ranks. The lead lawyer for New York-based private equity firm J. F. Lehman & Co, whom she has advised on a number of acquisitions and disposals, Irani also regularly advises on IPOs. Recently, she acted as part of the team that represented Inion Oy, the first Finnish company to ever list in London. She is currently advising Nomura, the financial services group, on two potential strategic investments.

Times Recommends

• City law firms prepare for painful year ahead
• Welcome to 2009: the year of the regulator
• Thacher Proffitt is latest US legal casualty