Mid-size US firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan has hired a group of bankruptcy lawyers from restructuring boutique Luskin, Stern & Eisler as it seeks to replace the 18-partner team it lost to Paul Hastings earlier this year.

The new team join in New York and includes four partners, a senior counsel and an associate. Richard Stern leads the team and will become co-chair of Stroock’s restructuring and bankruptcy group alongside existing Stroock partner Jeffrey Lowenthal. The other Luskin partner arrivals include Matthew O’Donnell, Alex Talesnick and Stephen Hornung, with Michael Luskin joining as senior counsel and Genna Grossman as associate. The team regularly represent financial institutions in restructurings and creditors’ rights litigation in the US and cross-border matters in Latin America, Canada and Europe.

Alan Klinger, Stroock’s co-managing partner, said: “A key goal has been the acquisition of additional restructuring and bankruptcy firepower that represents banks and financial institutions, positioning us to serve a strategically important sector ahead of the widely anticipated acceleration of the restructuring cycle.”

Stern is a bankruptcy law veteran with more than three decades of experience representing financial institutions in out-of-court workouts, restructurings and bankruptcy proceedings. He co-founded Luskin, Stern & Eisler in 1989 alongside Luskin before the team was absorbed by Hughes Hubbard & Reed in 2008. The firm spun out as an independent firm again in 2012.

O’Donnell spent almost eight years at Hughes Hubbard before joining Luskin in 2012. His practice focuses on loan restructurings and other lending transactions. Talesnick, meantime, had only been a Hughes Hubbard lawyer for eight months when he followed the team to Luskin, while Hornung was there for five years.

Stern said: “Stroock’s long history and reputation for excellence in restructuring is well known to our team. Stroock understands the nature of restructuring practice and knows how to cultivate it. And the firm’s strong and cohesive culture will foster the continued success that we’ve enjoyed as a boutique.”

The arrival of the Luskin team is part of Stroock’s rebuilding efforts following the 18-partner departure to Paul Hastings in March. Stroock’s co-chair Jeff Keitelman said at the time the group wanted to join a larger firm environment, calling the split a ‘congenial parting of the ways’.