Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) has hired Mayer Brown structured finance and capital markets partner Elana Hahn to join the firm's finance department in its London office.

Prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2007, Hahn was a finance and capital markets partner in the London office of Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy and before that an associate at magic circle firm Clifford Chance (CC). She resigned from Mayer Brown last week (1 September).

Hahn is qualified in Canada as well as England and Wales. Her practice centres around the securitisation and structured finance market, including, in particular, fund financing.

Earlier this year, she advised GMAC Commercial Finance on the £98m sale of its invoice financing loan book to the independent merchant bank Close Brothers. The sale included the transfer of 23 staff to Close Brothers.

Hahn is the first hire for MoFo in the City since 2008, when the firm brought in a trio of partners from Irwin Mitchell. Jonathan Wheeler, Alan Owens and Kevin Roberts joined as equity partners to launch the firm's London litigation practice, headed by Wheeler.

Until that point, MoFo, which has a strong US litigation practice, had not had a litigation capability in the City.

Mayer Brown, meanwhile, has been moving to boost its finance practice in the City in recent months. The US firm this May hired Allen & Overy (A&O) finance specialist Chris Arnold as a partner in its derivatives and structured products practice, making him the seventh finance partner hire for the London office in a year.

Other recent hires for the finance practice include Jacqui Evans, who also joined from A&O, and CC finance partner Lee Cullinane.