Reed Smith is to boost its City finance practice with the hire of Clifford Chance (CC) banking and finance partner Claude Brown.

News of the move comes days after it emerged that CC's global head of private equity David Walker, had resigned to join Latham & Watkins in London.

Brown, a partner at CC since 1998, specialises in derivatives and structured products. His practice covers collateralised debt obligations, structured products and energy, environmental and climatic trading, as well as Islamic finance.

He was part of a CC team that advised the Royal Bank of Scotland on the €1.4bn (£1.2bn) sale of a large leveraged loan portfolio to Intermediate Capital Group in 2010.

His switch to Reed Smith will see Brown re-united with former CC colleague Peter Zaman, who moved to the US firm last year. The pair previously co-headed CC's environmental and climatic trading group.

Brown's appointment is the latest in a string of hires by Reed Smith in the last month. Earlier this month the London office recruited McDermott Will & Emery partner Rashpaul Bahia, as part of a continued firm-wide push into the energy sector.

Reed Smith said in a statement: "Reed Smith can confirm that Claude Brown will be joining the firm in the coming weeks. Reed Smith has been successfully building its London practices in structured finance and derivatives over the past two years on a sustained basis. The firm has appointed a number of high profile partners in the recent past – all have joined the firm's London office as part of a strategic initiative to boost the firm's capabilities in structured finance, regulatory, derivatives and commodities."

Other recent hires for the US firm include former Hogan Lovells partner Michel Debroux, who this month joined to launch Reed Smith's Paris competition practice. Last week the firm also took on Noerr litigation partner Christian Stempfle in Munich.

Meanwhile CC this week made a significant Paris hire of its own, bringing in a five-strong Ashurst funds team led by practice chief Xavier Comaills.