Lawrence Graham LLP (LG) has hired Brett Israel as a partner and international head of its restructuring and insolvency team.
Brett will join LG from Bird & Bird LLP where he was both the UK-based co-head of the firm’s international corporate restructuring and insolvency group and a partner in its finance practice for over 13 years.
He has extensive experience acting for a range of insolvency practitioners, banks and other stakeholders on distressed corporate situations. Brett has worked on some of the most high profile UK corporate collapses in the past 20 years including BCCI, British and Commonwealth, MCC, Facia, Parmalat and Nortel. On the “good book” side, he routinely advises banks and customers on varied debt finance assignments from the pure “vanilla” through to more specialist fields including asset-based lending, trade finance and real estate finance.
Brett will be based within LG’s finance practice, led by Nick Turner, and work alongside Robert Paterson, UK head of restructuring and insolvency. Brett’s recruitment follows on from the arrival of finance partners John Fox, Matthew East and Simon Elphick in January this year and Iain Shurwood in October 2011.
Nick Turner said: “Brett is one of the most experienced and respected insolvency lawyers in the market. We have been extremely pleased with the performance of the team and Brett’s hire caps off what we fully expect to be a powerful unit within the ever-growing finance practice at LG.”
Brett Israel said: “LG’s finance and restructuring and insolvency practices have a strong presence already – the quality and number of partners hired in recent months is a clear statement of intent to grow significantly. I’m very excited at the prospect of working with the team to develop even further the firm’s restructuring and insolvency capability.
“More than ever at challenging times like these, it is imperative for there to be close co-ordination between a firm’s finance and restructuring and insolvency components which is why I am especially pleased to be able to blend my own complementary skillsets as part of LG’s integrated finance offering.”
