Weil Gotshal hit by double defection to McKee Nelson

Ernst & Young-associated US firm McKee Nelson has made another swoop on a rival for laterals, this time taking two securitisation partners from Weil Gotshal & Manges.

Structured finance and securitisation partners William Gray and Eugene Ferrer will bring the number of partners in McKee Nelson’s structured finance department to 20 after a sustained recruitment programme since the firm began in 1999.

During that time McKee Nelson has taken lawyers from a number of firms including the likes of Dewey Ballantine and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood.

Gray and Ferrer will rejoin Laurence Issacson, who last year quit Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson and Edward De Sear, who McKee Nelson recruited from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. Both partners also previously worked at Weil Gotshal.