Paul Hastings has hired a partner in London from A&O Shearman, according to sources with knowledge of the matter, as the firm moves to rebuild its high-yield practice following defections to Sullivan & Cromwell last month.
Brad Weyland has joined the firm after nearly five years as a partner at A&O Shearman and its predecessor Allen & Overy, before which he was a counsel at Latham & Watkins.
His hire will help to plug the gap created last month when Patrick Bright left Paul Hastings’ London office for Sullivan & Cromwell, where he leads the firm’s high-yield capability. William Needham moved over with him to co-head the firm’s European restructuring and special situations practice.
For his part, Weyland advises investment banks, private credit providers and corporates on capital markets transactions, including high-yield bonds, bridge loans and term loans. He also advises issuers and financial institutions in connection with restructurings and liability management matters, as well as indenture interpretation, disclosure and US Securities and Exchange Commission reporting matters.
Weyland’s clients include Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, and he also serves as co-vice chair of the high yield board of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME).
Weylands’s hire continues a drive by Paul Hastings in recent years to boost its London finance bench under firm chair Frank Lopez, as it moves to become a global market leader in finance and debt capital markets.
In 2022, it added a 15-lawyer leveraged finance team from Latham & Watkins that included key partners Ross Anderson, Mo Nurmohamed, Karan Chopra and Rob Davidson. Last year it hired structured finance partner Brian Maher and leveraged finance partner Reena Gogna from Weil.
The firm’s broader expansion efforts have seen it add 11 lateral partners in London over the past six months, including Slaughter and May corporate partner Mark Zerdin – the rare departure from the City stalwart was announced last month. It has also recruited partners across private equity, investment funds, fund finance, structured credit, tax, antitrust and employee incentives.
The aggressive hiring strategy appears to be paying off – Paul Hastings’ London revenue has jumped 90% in the last three years and 25% to $272.4m in the 12 months to 31 January 2025, according to Legal Business, marking the office as a standout performer in a year that saw the firm’s global revenue jump 20% to a record high of $2.68bn.
The London office has also seen senior departures recently, however. As well as Bright and Needham’s move to SullCrom, Paul Hastings’ former London co-chair, Mei Lian, moved to Magic Circle firm Linklaters last summer, while leveraged finance partners Edward Holmes and Alexander Horstmann-Caines exited for Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and KKR, respectively.
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