Fried Frank hires Cadwalader' partners

Fried Frank hires Cadwalader' partners

The firm's New York and Washington offices will receive the new arrivals along with an extensive team

The New York and Washington offices of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson have recruited five Wall Street rivals from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft to strengthen its finance teams in New York and Washington.

Ray Shirazi, Steven Lofchie, Dorothy Mehta, Nihal Patel, and Jason Schwartz are the new additions to the firm's team. They have experience relating to financial regulation, fund formation, broker-dealers and related transactional work. The four others will be based in New York. Schwarz will be based in Washington.

The Financial Times reported today that 15 other lawyers and 15 business services professionals will join them in the coming weeks.

Fried Frank's chairman, David Greenwald, expressed his excitement about the acquisition, saying it was "an exciting move for us both in terms of boosting our core competencies and expanding our practice area." By integrating the group, we will be better equipped to serve our global financial services clients.

Shirazi's practice focuses on derivatives and financial products, including asset-management and trading regulation issues for banks, hedge funds and mutual funds. His team will include Lofchie, who spent 15 years providing regulatory advisory services to broker-dealers at Cadwalader's New York office. Previously, he served as a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell for 12 years and also as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton for five years.

Since 2004, Mehta has been with Cadwalader, rising to special counsel in 2013 and becoming a partner in 2016. As an investment adviser and wealth manager, she advises the US and non-US investment advisers, family offices and wealth managers on the creation, formation and operation of investment funds. She began her career with Sullivan & Cromwell.

Lawyers Patel and Schwartz advise financial institutions and buy-side firms on securities trading and derivatives transactions. Patel has extensive experience advising players in the financial sector on financial transactions like catastrophe bonds, collateralized loan obligations and other securitizations.

"These accomplished professionals will add a wealth of experience to our innovative solutions that we provide to clients," said Steven Scheinfeld, corporate partner and global chair of Fried Frank's corporate department.

Along with the new hires, Fried Frank has recently welcomed New York-based asset management partner Rami Turayhi who joined McDermott Will & Emery in November, capital markets partner Brian Hecht who joined Katten Muchin Rosenman in September and banking regulatory practice head Joseph Vitale who joined Schulte Roth & Zabel in September.

A new office opened in Brussels in January, which allows the firm to realign its European regulatory offering in light of Brexit.

A Cadwalader's spokesperson wished their ex-colleagues well. "The focus of our firm, as always, remains on adequately serving the needs of our clients by providing them with outstanding service. Across our transactional and other practices, implementation of this approach has produced success to both clients and our firm and we anticipate that the growth trend will continue," mentioned the spokesperson.

For its part, Cadwalader announced today that Matthew Smith, a partner in finance, and Bevis Metcalfe, a partner in the restructuring and special situations, will join its leveraged finance and private credit team in London in April, after the both moving from Baker McKenzie.

Smith focuses his practice on advising lenders and private equity sponsors on European leveraged finance matters, while Metcalfe specializes in handling complex cross-border restructuring and special situations financings, with a particular importance on representing private investment funds.