Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has hired Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison counsel Menachem Kaplan as a partner and head of its U.S. intellectual property practice in New York.

Kaplan's move comes less than a month after the departure from Paul Weiss of senior litigator Roberta Kaplan, whom he called a “great colleague,” yet noted his decision was unrelated to that of his namesake, who also has no familial relation to the 42-year-old Kaplan.

Instead, Kaplan himself was drawn to Freshfields by a U.S. expansion effort launched by the London-based legal giant three years ago, one that earlier this year saw Freshfields recruit a three-partner restructuring team from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer.