Speechly Bircham has bolstered its City corporate practice with the hire of a former Mayer Brown partner.

Jonathan Crawford joins the firm's London office as a partner in the financial services team and will focus on large, cross-border transactional work, working closely with financial services sector group head Nick Janmohamed.

At Mayer Brown his practice focused on M&A, restructurings and joint venture transactions. He left at the end of last year after 11 years at the firm, prior to which he was a lawyer at DLA Piper – joining legacy firm Alsop Wilkinson in Liverpool in 1995.

Speechly's financial services group advises clients in the insurance sector as well as acting for brokers, banks, financial institutions and investment, wealth and asset managers on advisory, transactional and dispute resolution matters.

Janmohamed commented: "Jonathan's experience – particularly in the asset servicing and investment management sectors – neatly complements our own."

Speechlys managing partner Michael Lingens added: "Jonathan's appointment strengthens our offering in the financial services sector which aims to provide a complete advisory, transactional and dispute resolution service to regulated clients."

Crawford's move comes after former Mayer Brown partner Alistair Bird joined TLT's private equity practice in the City earlier this month.