Paul Hastings has launched in Charlotte, North Carolina, with more than 15 lawyers from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and Haynes Boone, underlining the growing importance of the East Coast city for major law firms.
The team includes Cadwalader fund finance partner Danyeale Chung and three finance partners from Haynes Boone: Holly Loftis, Aleksandra Kopec and Mark Nesdill.
Chung and Loftis – also a fund finance specialist – previously worked together at Cadwalader before Loftis moved to Haynes Boone in 2021.
Chung, who has been a partner at Cadwalader since 2021, acts for large lenders on complex and multi-jurisdictional arrangements that range from $35m to $6bn. Loftis brings particular expertise in subscription lines of credit for bespoke funds.
Kopec advises both lenders and borrowers on a range of products across fund and leveraged finance and brings with her extensive experience in financial markets in New York and Charlotte. Nesdill has a decade of experience representing banks and clients on matters involving NAV facilities, GP lines and collateralised fund obligations.
Paul Hastings expects the final size of the team joining to be between 15 and 20 lawyers in total.
‘Charlotte is a financial services hub and the home to many of our leading banks and asset manager clients, as well as Fortune 500 companies from other sectors,’ Paul Hastings’ chair Frank Lopez said in a statement. ‘We believe we are the global leader in finance and financial services and look forward to building a premier Charlotte office.’
The news marks the latest in a series of moves into Charlotte – where Bank of America is headquartered – by major US firms.
Orrick opened in the city last October as part of the hire of a 37-lawyer Cadwalader team across the US and London, while Proskauer also tapped Cadwalader to enter the market, taking a four-partner team led by former leveraged finance head Ronald Lovelace.
Paul Hastings has been bolstering its capabilities in private credit, leveraged finance and fund finance in recent months, with fund finance partner Jennifer Passange and structured finance partner Tom Picton joining the firm’s London base last November, from Haynes Boone and Ashurst respectively.
Loftis said that the opportunity to reunite with her former colleague Chung and team up with Paul Hastings fund finance head Eric Schwitzer was ‘too compelling to pass up.’
‘Our market has been craving additional service providers on the lender side, and our clients have been clear that they want one-stop shopping because of the efficiencies it creates for them, for their sponsor side clients and for their internal lawyers,’ Loftis added.
In 2025, Paul Hastings’ finance team closed over 500 debt financing matters, amounting to a total of more than $260bn in financing arrangements, the firm said.
Cadwalader, which announced its plan to merge with Hogan Lovells last year, has seen a steady stream of exits in recent months, including two senior litigation partners, who departed earlier in the month.
Danielle Tully, who has been a partner at Cadwalader for 17 years and served as co-chair of its global litigation and IP practice, will move to Orrick, while the former chair of Cadwalader’s corporate and financial services litigation team Jonathan Watkins is set to join Proskauer.
Tully’s move out of Cadwalader’s New York office marks the latest defection to Orrick, after last autumn the firm swiped a debt finance team comprising 37 lawyers, including ten partners, to its offices in London, New York, Washington DC, and Charlotte, the latter of which launched with the hiring announcement.
