Neel Sachdev had sleepless nights when he left Kirkland & Ellis to spearhead Paul Weiss’s London buildout in August 2023. The debt finance heavyweight, who moved with ex-Kirkland M&A partner Roger Johnson, wasn’t sure if he could convince top lawyers to join the London outpost.

He shouldn’t have worried. In just two years, the New York firm has grown its London office from a standing start with no UK law offering to more than 250 lawyers, including 40 partners. It now offers services across M&A, capital markets, tax, antitrust, funds, restructuring and, most recently, litigation.