Cahill Gordon & Reindel has opened a litigation practice in London after hiring partner Richard Kelly from rival Shearman & Sterling.

Kelly joins the firm after eight years at Shearman where he has worked as partner in the international litigation and arbitration groups since 2010. He will lead the expansion of Cahill's London litigation practice.

His experience includes acting for investment banks on complex litigation, investigations and risk management mandates on issues such as benchmark setting, rogue traders, mis-selling and securities fraud.

Kelly said: "Building a litigation capacity here in London is a natural complement not only to the firm's outstanding litigation team in the US, but also to the London office's existing practice which has served many of the same clients in finance transactions for more than a decade."

Kelly's addition will allow the firm to practice English law for the first time after it authorised as an alternative business structure (ABS) by the Solicitors Regulation Authority last month.

William Hartnett, chair of Cahill's executive committee said: "Our authorisation from the SRA enables our US and UK practices to work together more effectively and to provide a comprehensive litigation service across those key markets."

Cahill opened its London office in 2000 and recently moved to larger premises in the City as part of the ongoing expansion of its corporate practice.

Cahill's profit per partner (PEP) fell 4.4% in 2014 to $3.62m (£2.47m) from $3.78m (£2.59m). It is still the second highest PEP result of all US firms to have reported their results so far.

However, this year, it slipped below US rival Paul Weiss whose PEP rose 6.1% in 2014 to $3.84m (£2.63m), the highest so far.

Cahill's revenue also dropped 1.6% to $380.2m (£260.2m) from $386.5m ((£264.47m) in 2013.