Richard Andrew Powles is a London-based lawyer who served as a partner and senior partner of Rowe & Maw, a City of London law firm that merged with the Chicago-based Mayer, Brown & Platt in 2002. He was admitted to the bar in England in 1971 and holds a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford.
Education
Powles holds a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford, recorded as MA (Oxon). Oxford is a collegiate university in which autonomous colleges provide tutorial teaching alongside the central university's faculties and examinations. The Oxford Master of Arts is normally conferred on graduates after a set period following their first degree rather than through further study.
He speaks French. In 1971 he was admitted to the bar in England, the professional qualification that preceded his legal career in London.
Career
Powles built his professional career in London as a partner of Rowe & Maw, a firm established in London in 1895. By the time of its 2002 merger, Rowe & Maw also had offices in Manchester and Brussels, and Chambers & Partners had nominated it as UK Law Firm of the Year in 2000.
On February 1, 2002, Mayer, Brown & Platt, a Chicago-based firm whose partnership dates to 1881, merged with Rowe & Maw to form Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw. The combined firm was renamed Mayer Brown in 2007. Powles later took part in an alumni interview marking the London office's 130-year history, in which he reflected on the 2002 merger and his time at the firm.
A trade press report identified him as senior partner of Rowe & Maw and reported that he expected to make further appointments in the coming months, at a time when the firm was adding a specialist in the transport sector.
