Kirkland & Ellis has bolstered its structured credit finance and structured private credit practice with the hire of a partner apiece in London and New York. 

Suril Patel has joined Kirkland as its first structured finance lawyer in London from legal tech start-up Harvey, while Jared Axelrod has joined in New York from Milbank to lead the build out of the firm’s global collateralised loan obligation (CLO) capabilities. 

“Jared and Suril will round out our new structured finance and structured private credit practice, which has been a high-priority growth area for Kirkland this year given increased demand for structured products across private equity and private credit, as well as infrastructure, fund finance and other key areas,” said Jon Ballis, chairman of Kirkland’s executive committee. “We’re excited about adding these lawyers to the best-in-class team we’ve assembled, which now covers the gamut of structured finance transactions for our sponsor and funds clients.”

Patel, who was a partner at legacy Allen & Overy before joining Harvey last year, brings experience in has a background in EU risk retention and London-market CLOs. His practice focuses on advising sponsors, credit funds, institutional investors, financial institutions and borrowers on structured finance transactions that include securitisations, structured private credit and other complex financing structures. At Harvey Patel worked as VP of partnerships and as an advisor, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

His hire follows a series of defections from Kirkland’s London office for Paul Weiss, as the latter builds a top-tier practice in the city around private equity. Just last week Paul Weiss said it had made its fifth partner hire of the year from Kirkland’s investment funds team, having launched a European funds practice in February with the hire of Kirkland partner James King.

Meantime Axelrod advises clients on negotiating and structuring CLOs and other complex securitisations. He has advised domestic and international asset managers and issuers across a wide variety of CLO transactions, as well as other complex structured credit financing arrangements, including private credit securitisations, rated note feeders and insurance solution products. He has been a partner at Milbank since the start of last year, having joined the firm six years ago from Dechert. 

Kirkland said its structured finance and structured private credit practice has tripled in size since this summer, with the cross-border team nearing 30 attorneys. Axelrod’s hire follows partner Michael Urschel joining the practice in New York in June, also from Milbank, and partner Kelly Mellecker’s hire in September from Goldman Sachs.