Travers Smith has made a rare lateral partner hire, snaring Kirkland & Ellis City private equity partner Stephanie Biggs.

Travers has only made two lateral hires since 2004, the most recent being Charles Casassa, who joined from Clifford Chance in 2011 to set up the firm's US securities practice.

Biggs, who is joining Travers' financial services and markets team, specialises in asset management regulation. She has experience in private equity fund formation, with particular focus on regulatory and compliance issues affecting private equity firms.

Biggs was promoted to partner in 2009 at Kirkland, having joined in 2007 from legacy SJ Berwin where she was an associate.

She joins a five-partner financial services and markets team at Travers, which forms part of a wider 12-partner group focusing on both non-contentious and contentious financial services regulatory matters.

Financial services and markets department head Jane Tuckley said: "[Biggs] is a very talented lawyer with an established profile, whose strong skillset and proven expertise in asset management regulation neatly fits one of our group's strengths. Her arrival represents an important expansion of our offering to clients in this ambitious and constantly developing market sector."

The practice was also boosted this month with the hire of consultant Richard Everett, who formerly headed up legacy Lawrence Graham's financial services regulatory group.

In September Travers' head of private equity Paul Dolman told Legal Week that the firm is looking to expand the number of partners in its private equity team from the current headcount of 10, despite the recent departure of corporate dealmaker Phil Sanderson to Ropes & Gray.