Two lawyers from Debevoise & Plimpton's aviation finance practice have joined Winstead as shareholders in New York, as the Texas-based firm launches in the Big Apple.

Jaesuk "Jay" Yoo and Jaeyong "Jae" So, most recently counsel at Debevoise, help airlines negotiate with manufacturers, lenders and lessors to acquire, fund and lease airplanes.

The new hires build on Winstead's focus on airline clients and mark the firm's first new office in a decade. The firm's New York location at 437 Madison Ave. quietly opened in late January. The Am Law 200 firm has about 300 attorneys firmwide in seven other offices, most of them in Texas.

Bart Biggers, who chairs Winstead's 20-lawyer airline industry group, said "the Jays" fill a finance hole in the firm's "nose-to-tail" offering to airlines. The firm represents two of the top three airlines in the world, he said, and he said he's eager to reveal Winstead's new, expanded team at the International Air Transport Association's upcoming conference in Brooklyn.

"We thought this was the right time" to add aviation finance expertise to the practice, said Biggers, who said the airline practice has been growing and maturing since it was created in 2016 with six lawyers. "We have a very strong financial position as a firm, and we now have the client base between [So and Yoo's clients] and what we've had here before" to support a larger team.

So has been practicing for about 25 years and Yoo for about 10 years, Biggers added.

Winstead CEO David Dawson said the firm's space in New York can accommodate up to seven lawyers. He said the firm's 2010 expansion to the southern financial hub of Charlotte, North Carolina, was something of a blueprint for the expansion to New York. The firm's finance lawyers who serve other industries and its commercial mortgage-backed securities practice may also benefit from a presence in New York, he added.

"A lot of this was driven by a conversation among Bart and Jay and Jae and some of our clients who had been using Jay and Jae as well as Winstead," Dawson said. "[We] thought, if we were to combine forces, it might be a good thing."

Biggers said So and Yoo's financing expertise would complement Winstead's record of helping airlines with the time-sensitive and regulatory requirements for outfitting airplanes with everything from seats and landing gear to coffee machines.

Asked whether So and Yoo's rates would be closer to those of New York or Texas, Biggers wouldn't comment directly but said his firm was known for its "extremely reasonable" rates and said clients were happy with So and Yoo's addition.

So said he moved to Winstead in November and Yoo joined in late January. Yoo said the opportunity to make partner—or at Winstead, shareholder—was "part of the equation" for himself and So. But more than that, they saw "synergy" in hitching their finance work and clients to Winstead's practice.

A spokesman for Debevoise declined to comment on So and Yoo's departure.