DLA Piper has hired former Ropes & Gray London senior partner Maurice Allen as a consultant, in an unconventional move that will see him work for both firms concurrently.

Allen, who retired from Ropes' partnership at the end of 2016, will join DLA Piper on 1 February. He will work with DLA's financial services sector group to help develop the firm's strategy in this area, and will report to Charles Severs, DLA's managing director of practice groups, and Jan Geert Meents, the managing director of sectors and clients at the firm.

At the same time, he will retain his consultant role at Ropes, focusing on the firm's global client programme.

A Ropes spokesperson said: "This has been under discussion for some time and we are comfortable with Maurice working on a consultancy basis for both firms, so long as the consultancies are scoped and, more importantly, will operate on a conflict-free basis."

Allen founded Ropes' London office in January 2010 with long-time colleague Mike Goetz when the pair joined from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, with Goetz taking the role of London managing partner.

He also set up Weil Gotshal & Manges' City office in 1996, before he moved to White & Case in 2000 with Goetz to launch a London leveraged finance practice for the US firm.

DLA Piper global co-chief executive Simon Levine said: "Maurice is an extremely highly regarded banking and finance lawyer who has held very senior roles at a number of magic circle and US law firms."

The hire will be a boost for DLA's finance practice, which recently missed out on some key bank mandates. In October last year the firm lost its place on the core Lloyds Bank panel, while in June it also missed out in Barclays' panel review, which saw the bank slash its external advisers by 60%.

The firm has also seen key finance partners depart for rival firms. In August last year, the co-chair of its financial services sector, Philip Butler, exited for Dechert. He was joined by DLA's head of debt finance David Miles.

However, DLA has also hired a number of finance partners including, in January last year, former Latham & Watkins leveraged finance lawyer Andy Kolacki in London and Clifford Chance banking and finance partner Paul Latto in Riyadh in February 2016.

Recent finance mandates for DLA include advising Germany-based real estate bank Aareal Bank AG in December on a loan to Invesco Real Estate of up to €1bn (£0.9bn) over a 10-year period, one of the biggest loans in the real estate sector last year.

Separately, DLA's international group head of real estate Carsten Loll is leaving to join Linklaters, where he will split his time between Frankfurt and Munich. His start date is not yet known.

DLA is in the process of finding a successor to Loll. The co-chair of DLA's global cross-practice sector, Olaf Schmidt, will act in his place in the interim. Loll joined DLA's Munich office in 2010 from Hogan Lovells.