Law firm Paul Hastings adds funds finance team for Charlotte launch

By David Thomas

Jan 26 (Reuters) - The already-crowded legal market in Charlotte, North Carolina, gained another major entrant on Monday, when Paul Hastings announced a new office in the financial services hub led by a group of partners from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and Haynes Boone.

Paul Hastings said it hired fund finance partners Danyeale Chung from Cadwalader and Holly Loftis, Aleksandra (Aleks) Kopec and Mark Nesdill from Haynes Boone. Loftis said in an interview they are expecting about 15 additional lawyers from both firms to join them.

Other national firms have also looked to Cadwalader to build a presence in Charlotte. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe opened a Charlotte office in October with a group of 37 lawyers from Cadwalader. In September, four leveraged finance partners decamped from Cadwalader and joined Proskauer Rose.

Akerman, Greenberg Traurig and Michael Best & Friedrich have also opened offices in Charlotte since 2022.

"There are a lot of lenders here, there are a lot of Fortune 500 companies, so I think it's definitely an investment that many firms are making and have made over the past several years," Loftis said. She said Paul Hastings' already-existing lender-side fund finance practice was one of the attractions to joining the firm.

Albert Tan, the global fund finance head at Haynes Boone, said in a statement that the firm continues to "lead the market, as evidenced by the interest our attorneys are garnering."

A spokesperson for Cadwalader said its fund finance team is the largest in the market and that the firm hired more than 20 fund finance lawyers in 2025.

Cadwalader in December said it was merging with Hogan Lovells to create a firm with 3,100 lawyers and $3.6 billion in annual revenue. A partnership vote on the merger is set for later this year.