Vinson & Elkins bulks up London PE team

• Vinson & Elkins added to its growing London team with the hire of M&A and private equity lawyer Shaun Lascelles as partner. He joins the firm from Ashurst, where he worked for just over a year. Lascelles previously worked as partner and co-head of the global private equity group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The firm also appointed London-based Simon Rootsey, an M&A and private equity lawyer from Skadden, and promoted private equity attorney Dan Graham to counsel. The firm hired private equity partner Paul Dunbar and finance partner Ian Frost earlier this year, bringing the number of private equity lawyers located in London to 14.

• DLA Piper appointed investment funds lawyer Yasho Lahiri as partner and director of the firm’s institutional investor practice in New York. He joins the firm’s corporate practice and investment funds group from Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. He represents firms and institutional investors on the formation, capitalization and restructuring of private investment funds. He has experience advising credit funds, buyout funds, long and short equity funds, funds of funds, and funds with private equity, hedge fund and hybrid fund features. His investor clients include sovereign wealth funds, state pension plans, insurance companies and corporate pension plans. DLA Piper also added real estate funds specialist Nathaniel Marrs to its finance team in Chicago. He joins the firm from Latham & Watkins, where he worked for more than five years advising domestic and international real estate fund sponsors and other real estate owners on corporate transactions, including the formation and structuring of private equity funds.

• Kirkland & Ellis appointed Roger Lucas as partner in the firm’s tax team. He joins the firm’s Chicago office from rivals Winston & Strawn. Lucas focuses on business formations, complex transactions and financings. He advises private equity on their acquisitions and dispositions, and with the structuring of investments in their funds. 

• Norton Rose Fulbright appointed David Marshall as partner in the firm’s London private equity team. Marshall joins the firm from Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, where he spent nearly four years advising private equity and venture capital houses, family offices and management teams. He specializes in UK and cross-border private equity and venture capital transactions, especially acquisitions, disposals, buyouts, investments and joint ventures.

• Justin JX Cai joined Duane Morris & Selvam’s corporate, banking and finance practice groups as a director in its Shanghai office. He joins the firm from MWE China Law Offices, McDermott Will & Emery's strategic alliance office in China. Cai advises on M&A, joint ventures, outbound investment, project finance, real estate, private equity and venture capital, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation, labor law, foreign exchange compliance and customs law. He has more than 12 years of private practice experience in China and has advised on more than 60 projects in various industries.

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