CHICAGO – Chapman and Cutler LLP is expanding its municipal and structured finance practices with the addition of 10 attorneys from the international law firm Ashurst LLP.
The departure of the 10 from Ashurst followed a restructuring of the firm’s U.S. division earlier in the year.
Six joined the Chapman’s New York office as partners last week. They are Douglas Bird, William Gray, Steven Kopp, David Nirenberg, Patrick Quill, and Michael Voldstad. Jacquelyn Cerasuolo joined the firm as senior counsel and R. Bradley Vollkommer joined the firm as a senior associate.
The other two are in Chapman’s San Francisco office. Thomas Glushko joined the firm as a partner and Christopher McGovern joined the firm as senior counsel. They also started last week.
The addition should bolster Chapman’s transactional, regulatory, and tax counsel capabilities, the firm said. “Chapman’s long-term strategy has been to deepen and expand relationships with clients across the United States particularly in the major financial centers,” said chief executive partner Tim Mohan, who announced the additions Monday.
Chapman ranked sixth last year nationally among bond counsel firms, according to Thomson Reuters data, credited with 436 transactions valued at $13 billion. The firm said the additions bring its asset securitization group to 41 and its public finance group to 64 with its total headcount of attorneys at 231.
“This is a group we really wanted,” Mohan said. The partners who joined Chapman had worked together as a group for some time and were previously at the former McKee Nelson.
“In addition to the transaction experience our new partners and senior counsel bring to Chapman, we gain added regulatory and tax depth for our structured finance and municipal clients,” said Chapman’s lateral recruiting partner Walt Begley.
Begley said the additions add more specialty experience in specific areas such as collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs.
Bird specializes in municipal finance across infrastructure, transportation and energy sectors. Glushko specializes financing and repackaging of tax-exempt municipal securities, tender option bonds, direct lending, new financial products, and related regulatory compliance and Gray specializes CLOs, tender option bonds, swaps, and derivatives, equity-linked and new financial products, and related regulatory compliance.
Kopp specializes on U.S. tax issues arising from structured finance transactions, loan agreements, derivatives, and investment funds and Nirenberg specializes in tax issues arising from securitizations, taxable and tax-exempt derivative financial products, debt and equity capital markets transactions, and investment funds.
Quill specializes in CLOs, closed-end fund financing, asset-backed securitization and financial regulatory compliance and Voldstad specializes in tender option bonds, direct lending and other municipal credit products, new product development in municipal lending and derivatives.
Cerasuolo specializes in direct loans, letters of credit, liquidity facilities, tender option bond programs, swaps, and derivatives. McGovern specializes in CLOs, asset/mortgage-backed securities, cross-border and domestic lending, and derivatives and Vollkommer specializes on CLOs, tender option bonds, and other structured and derivatives products.
Quill, who spoke on behalf of the group, said in a statement his colleagues chose Chapman “because of the firm’s focus on financial services, including structured finance and municipal clients.”
Chapman is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Charlotte, New York, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC with practices focused on transactional, regulatory, tax, and litigation matters.
Ashurst did not return a call to comment. Firm officials said in published reports that as part of its restructuring it did not plan on replacing its CLO team and the departures to Chapman were not expected to impact its U.S. business.
