Eric Blanchard, who led the capital markets and securities practice at Covington & Burling, has moved to Cooley's New York office. He said the firm's deep bench and growing clout made sense for his clients in the European biotech space.

Blanchard said he's frequently been across from Cooley partners over the course of his career, including Div Gupta and capital markets group co-chairs Charlie Kim and David Peinsipp. The latter was his co-counsel on last year's Uber initial public offering. He said Cooley offers "a comprehensive service model for people who are innovators."

A key difference, he said, is that Cooley's capital markets team is much bigger. His practice group joined Covington from Dewey & LeBoeuf in 2012 but he said Covington has become more focused on white-collar cases and major litigation since then, becoming "the core" of the firm.

"Moving to a firm where the core is advising entrepreneurial companies and more directed toward capital markets and IPOs … was something that was attractive to me," he said.

In a statement, Cooley's Peinsipp praised his knowledge of the life sciences industry and called him a "trusted advisor" to investment banks. The firm described his practice as advising on IPOs and other equity offerings, financings, debt offerings, liability management transactions, proxy contests and acquisitions. He also advises public companies on governance and securities and disclosure issues.

Client reaction to the move has been "enthusiastic," Blanchard said. His last day at Covington was Friday and he started at Cooley on Monday. He declined to say whether anyone else would be moving with him.

A spokesman for Covington said the firm wished Blanchard well and said Brian Rosenzweig and Chris DeCresce would be leading the firm's capital markets and securities practice in light of his departure.

The move comes after a 2019 that saw Covington grow its average head count by 9%, its revenue by 6.3% to $1.19 billion and its profits per partner by about 4% to about $1.8 million. Cooley grew its revenue by 8.4% last year, to $1.33 billion, and boosted its profits per equity partner by 6.4% to $2.54 million.

Cooley's hire of Blanchard isn't a one-off lateral addition to its corporate partner ranks. Last week, the firm added Len Jacoby, an intellectual property transactions partner from Cooley. But Covington has also been staffing up, adding three project finance lawyers last week from DLA Piper: Joseph Tato, Charles Carroll and Andrea Chambers.