Sidley Austin is continuing its London hiring spree with the addition of two senior partners in Clifford Chance’s Tier 1 restructuring practice. The US firm is adding CC’s global co-head of restructuring and insolvency Philip Hertz and Melissa Coakley, who leads the firm’s London restructuring and insolvency team.
Hertz, who has been at CC since 2002, is a heavyweight in the restructuring market and has led on high profile mandates for clients including the Co-operative Bank, Autobar and British Energy plc. He also advised the senior lenders to Carillion and advised the Department for Transport on the impact of Covid-19 on the airline and airports sector, including in relation to the Virgin Atlantic restructuring plan. He is a Legal 500 Hall of Famer and has led the practice globally since 2016.
Coakley has been at CC since 2003, making partner in 2020. She has experience advising on a range of restructurings across sectors including telecommunications, oil and gas, retail and financial services.
The hires are the latest in a string of big name additions for Sidley in London, with the firm notably bringing in a clutch of partners from Latham & Watkins in recent times.
It hired Latham’s former global real estate co-chair Jeremy Trinder in January this year, following up with the hire of UK equity capital markets co-head James Inness earlier this month. Their moves reunited them with the five sponsor-side leveraged finance partners Sidley hired from Latham in 2024, led by Jayanthi Sadanandan and Sam Hamilton.
However, the firm had not made a significant restructuring hire in London since practice co-heads Mark Knight and Jifree Cader left to launch Davis Polk’s European offering in 2024.
Its London corporate restructuring practice is currently ranked in Tier 4 by Legal 500, and is now led by Kieran Sharma, who returned to Sidley in 2023 after a three-year stint as a director on the European investment team at Strategic Value Partners, an investment firm focused on distressed debt and private equity opportunities.
Globally, the firm’s restructuring group is led by Stephen Hessler in New York. He joined Sidley in 2022 after 18 years at Kirkland & Ellis, and is known for his decades of experience in complex Chapter 11 cases and out-of-court restructurings. In the US the firm counts JP Morgan Chase and US financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald as key clients.
Hertz and Coakley’s departures from CC come after the firm last year strengthened its US restructuring and insolvency practice with the hire of former Gibson Dunn co-chair David Feldman to lead the practice globally alongside Hertz.
A Clifford Chance spokesperson said: ‘We thank Philip and Melissa for their contributions to the firm and wish them well for the future.’
Sidley declined to comment.
