Paul Hastings has hired another partner from US rival Weil Gotshal & Manges, this time adding structured finance lawyer Brian Maher in London. 

Maher is the lastest in a string of partners to join the top 40 US firm from Weil as it moves to become a global market leader in finance and debt capital markets. Among them was Shawn Kodes, who worked closely with Maher at Weil and joined Paul Hastings in New York earlier this year as co-chair of its asset-backed finance practice. 

Maher has made the move after 17 years at Weil, where he advised clients including Apollo, Barclays and Deutsche Bank on asset-backed finance transactions. His practice covers all forms of securitisation and asset-based lending, CLOs, performing and non-performing loan portfolio acquisitions and financings, development loans, restructurings, warehouse facilities and secured loan transactions. 

Paul Hastings chair, Frank Lopez, said Maher's practice aligned with the firm's and would boost its asset-backed financing and capital markets securitisation capabilities. 

“His arrival enhances our capacity to handle complex alternative financing transactions for our clients,” Lopez added.  

Maher will continue to work closely with Kodes at Paul Hastings, where his practice will be a similar extension to the firm's structured credit team in London as Kodes’ is in New York. 

Maher will also work closely with Paul Hastings' existing structured credit team in London, including partners Cameron Saylor, James Baillie and Christian Parker, who do a large amount of CLO work. The London team is involved in more than half of all European CLO deals; last year Parker led the Paul Hastings team that advised CVC Credit in the establishment of its largest yet CLO equity fund, one of the biggest fundraisings of its kind globally.

“Paul Hastings is a force in the global structured credit market," said Maher. "This is an opportunity to bring my complementary practice to the the firm's platform, working with colleagues to continue building our offerings in asset-backed finance, securitisation, derivatives and related financial products.” 

A Weil spokesperson commented: "We wish Brian the best." 

Maher's move will also reunite him with former Weil partner Reena Gogna, who joined Paul Hastings in June in a move that boosted its lender-side leveraged finance offering in the City. 

Late in 2022 the firm also hit Weil’s London lender-side finance practice for partners Patrick Bright and Alex Horstmann-Caines, around the same time that leading acquisition finance partner Morgan Bale defected in New York after 24 years at Weil. 

Over the past year Paul Hastings has grown its global banking and finance practice by 12% to nearly 270 lawyers according to to publicly-available data tracked by Pirical. 

Most of those hires have been in the US, including an eight-partner energy-focused team that joined in Texas from Vinson & Elkins and an 11-partner private credit and restructuring team from King & Spalding. 

The ambitious hiring strategy appears to be paying off, with the firm growing revenue nearly 9% last year to a record $1.8bn as rising demand saw it shrug off the post-2021 hangover that affected its rivals.

For his part Maher is now poised to contribute to the growth of Paul Hastings’ London office, which has more than doubled revenue and lawyer headcount in the past five years to around 170 lawyers. The firm doesn’t publish financial data for the London office, but said it had had a record first quarter.  

Over the past year Paul Hastings has been recruiting talent in London across practice areas, with standout hires including former SFO banking fraud division head Stuart Alford KC from Latham & Watkins and restructuring partner William Needham from KKR.  

The firm has also seen partner departures in London recently, including that of Adrian Chiodo, who left to be head of European leveraged finance at Covington & Burling in March less than three years after joining from Latham. Shortly after Chiodo's departure, structured finance specialist Blake Jones moved over to Clifford Chance and in May Luke McDougall, a former co-chair of the firm’s global finance practice, defected to Davis Polk.