Kaye Scholer bulks up US operations

Kaye Scholer has beefed up its US presence with a number of hires in New York and Los Angeles.

In New York, the firm has snared a duo of structured finance partners from Thacher Proffitt & Wood as well as an IP partner from Latham & Watkins. In Los Angeles, the firm has hired a corporate partner from Winston & Strawn.

Former Thacher Proffitt partners William Cullen and Janet Barbiere joined Kaye Scholer last week. Structured finance co-chair Henry Morriello explained that the hires are integral to the firm's strategy of bulking up the practice area in London, Chicago and New York.

Morriello said: "We have always been dedicated to structured finance but we do need to build a larger team across our offices. We have been focused on a lot of structured investment vehicle (SIV) work and now we are involved in restructuring in this area. We need more partners and associates to deal with the current work load."

The IP practice has welcomed James Blank from Latham. His practice focuses on patent litigation, particularly cases involving liquid crystal displays, communications cables, video game systems, web analytics and digital mammography.

Leora Ben-Ami, co-chair of Kaye Scholer's IP practice, said Blank's hire is representative of a five-year investment plan that has seen the expansion of the patent litigation practice.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles private equity partner Thomas Stromberg has joined the corporate practice.

As well as private equity Stromberg focuses on corporate finance transactions, joint ventures, corporate governance issues and general corporate matters.