Morgan Lewis offices in downtown Philadelphia.

Continuing on a lateral hiring spree, Morgan Lewis has added to its transactional capabilities in Chicago, with two partners from Sidley Austin.

Jeff Weinstein and Patrick Lampe are now partners in the firm's structured transactions practice, which Morgan Lewis gained in its combination with Bingham McCutchen in 2014. Morgan Lewis partner Philip Russell, who has been with the firm since 2014, is also relocating from New York to Chicago to work with them.

“So far in our Chicago office we haven't really had a corporate finance transactional practice,” Reed Auerbach, leader of Morgan Lewis' structured transactions practice, said. “The addition will not only help us to attract more talent on our team, but also more talent generally.”

Auerbach noted that before his group joined Morgan Lewis, it didn't have access to a Chicago office, which made it difficult to recruit transactions lawyers in that key market.

“The practices grew up largely, initially, in Chicago and New York, and [Washington] D.C., to a lesser extent because of the government program,” he said. “By combining and expanding into Chicago, we're able to cover all the markets where the clients are located.”

Weinstein and Lampe were known to the lawyers in Morgan Lewis' structured transactions group because of some common clients, Auerbach said, also noting that structured transactions is “a relatively small market,” where most of the lawyers know each other well.

Within their practice Weinstein and Lampe work on auto and equipment finance and collateralized fund obligations, Auerbach said, which are areas Morgan Lewis had been looking to add. They also work on residential mortgage loans, credit card receivables, floorplan loans, trade receivables and timeshare loans, as well as other nontraditional asset classes.

They follow five new intellectual property litigation partners, who joined Morgan Lewis from McDermott Will & Emery in July, and the addition of six tax partners earlier this year.

“The growth in Chicago is a clear part of our strategy. We want to be a very significant provider of legal services in the Midwest, and Chicago is the place for us to do that,” managing partner Steven Wall said in a July interview.

Morgan Lewis is also in the process of adding a large group from McDermott in Orange County, consisting of several dozen IP partners, other lawyers and staff. The firm also added three corporate partners from Herbert Smith Freehills in London last week.

In Dallas, however, the firm lost two partners last week, who left to launch their own firm.

Sidley Austin declined to comment on Weinstein and Lampe's departures.

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