A group of Weil lawyers, including three partners, is set to join the firm's former private equity co-head, Chris Machera, in defecting to Paul Weiss.
Private equity M&A partner Timothy Burns, tax partner Noah Beck and executive compensation partner Amanda Rotkel will join in New York in the coming weeks with a pair of associates, Paul Weiss said.
Alongside Machera, who moved over in New York at the end of last month, the team has advised on deals for dozens of private equity clients including Blackstone, CVC Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TPG over the past few years.
Paul Weiss chair Scott Barshay said the group was “one of the most talented teams of private equity lawyers in the marketplace”.
“Advising private equity clients in their most important transactions is one of our core missions, which makes this team a perfect fit,” he added.
The team's move comes amid a cluster of high-profile exits from 1,200-lawyer Weil on both sides of the Atlantic. Earlier this month it emerged that Michael Aiello, the chair of Weil's corporate department, was leaving for Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York with a team of five M&A partners. Less than a week later, Sullivan & Cromwell (S&C) announced the hire of Weil’s London co-managing partner, David Avery-Gee, and corporate partner Sarah Flaherty.
S&C has repeatedly hit the firm to build its City bench in a drive that began last September with the hire of its former London managing partner Mike Francies, while a clutch of Weil partners has also defected to Simpson Thacher & Bartlett this year, among them US private funds co-head Stephanie Srulowitz and GP stakes and investment management partner Andrew Nichol, both in New York.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg Law reported that Weil was exploring options for its future, including a potential merger, amid the defections.
A Weil spokesperson denied the report, saying the firm "is not engaged in merger discussions with any firm". They added: "Like every leading firm, we continually evaluate opportunities to strengthen our platform."
Paul Weiss' focus on private equity has spurred it to grow its London practice from three partners to 55 in the space of three years through repeated hits on rivals, particularly Kirkland & Ellis.
The office is not immune to departures, however – Clifford Chance announced today it had hired leveraged finance partners Taner Hassan and Silvia Menendez, two years after they left the firm for Paul Weiss, while earlier in the year Kirkland hired top PE dealmaker Will Aitken-Davies, Paul Weiss' former head of European M&A.
For its part, Weil has also been adding senior PE talent in recent months, including Jonathan Stott and Michael Hanna in San Francisco, who joined in August from Dechert and Kirkland, respectively. On Monday (21 September), Weil announced that Freshfields partner Olga Stürmer was joining its Frankfurt office as a partner in the German private equity practice.
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