Proskauer has hired a four-partner banking team in New York, with three of the group joining the firm’s global finance practice from Cahill.
Confirmation of the moves comes after Legal Business revealed last week that a trio of Cahill partners had left the firm and were close to joining Proskauer.
Finance partners Stephen Harper and Brian Kelleher and private credit partner Chris Bevan departed Cahill in August. The trio have joined Proskauer today alongside leveraged finance partner William Miller.
‘Bill, Brian, Steve, and Chris materially deepen and expand our bank-facing syndicated loan and high-yield offering,’ said Justin Breen, Proskauer’s co-head of finance, who joined the firm as a partner in 2010 from Cahill, where he was an associate. ‘Combined with our market-leading private credit practice, their experience further strengthens our fully integrated leveraged finance platform, and our ability to serve clients seamlessly across products and capital structures.’
Miller previously worked at Cahill but left the firm before he was handed a one-year suspension from practising law in December 2024 by the New York Supreme Court for ‘failures to file his state and federal income tax returns’.
Harper has experience advising clients on transactions involving a similar range of products, across industries including healthcare, financial services and technology, media and communications. In 2021, he advised the financing sources on Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ $7.2bn acquisition of GW Pharmaceuticals.
Kelleher has similarly broad experience advising on a range of leveraged finance transactions, while Bevan has worked on financing deals for acquisitions by Apollo, KKR, Nordic Capital and Stone Point Capital.
Harper had been at Cahill for 14 years, making partner in 2021, while Kelleher spent 24 years at the firm, and became a partner in 2011. Bevan was promoted to the partnership in 2023.
The exits are the latest in a number of departures from Cahill. In July, Paul Hastings hired private credit partner Peter Williams in New York, while DLA Piper added leveraged finance partner Michael Makhotin to its Manhattan base several months earlier.
In London the firm built up a high-yield offering in 2024 with the addition of Jake Keaveny and Court Tisdale from Cahill’s City arm.
Proskauer has been making a major push in the UK over the last two years, also bringing in A&O Shearman banking partner Philip Bowden to spearhead its finance build.
