Milbank poaches White & Case global practice co-head to launch its 12th office in Chicago
Milbank has hired Nadav Klugman, co-chair of White & Case's global project development and finance practice, as its first partner in Chicago, marking the firm's first new office opening since it launched a foreign legal consultant office in Seoul in 2015. Chicago becomes Milbank's 12th global location. Klugman's practice centres on energy transition and structured corporate solutions, with particular focus on advising financial institutions and sponsors on project financings, private acquisitions and divestitures of renewable energy investments, and tax equity investments. Before joining White & Case in 2024, he was a partner at Mayer Brown. His client roster includes BlackRock, Bank of America, KKR, and Nomura. Milbank chairman Scott Edelman described Chicago as an important new market for attracting talent and better serving clients, specifically pointing to the energy transition sector as a growth area. Milbank global project, energy and infrastructure finance partner Mike Duff said financings for renewable energy assets had increased at an unprecedented rate and that Klugman's experience would strengthen the firm's renewable platform. The Chicago move comes shortly after Simpson Thacher & Bartlett opened an office in the city with five partners hired from Kirkland & Ellis, and Akin Gump launched there in autumn 2025 with a four-partner real estate funds and infrastructure M&A team from Mayer Brown, signalling intensifying competition among elite US firms for Midwest market presence.
Why this matters
The clustering of Milbank, Simpson Thacher, and Akin Gump openings in Chicago within a short window reflects a broader push by elite US firms to compete for renewable energy and infrastructure finance mandates outside their traditional New York and Washington bases. Chicago sits at the centre of the US energy transition deal flow, making it strategically valuable for firms with strong project finance and private equity practices. Klugman's hire signals that Milbank views energy transition project finance as a priority growth segment, consistent with the acceleration of renewable asset financings driven by US clean energy incentives. For London students targeting US firms, the trend illustrates how elite practices are building geographic reach to follow capital deployment rather than waiting for clients to come to them.
On the Ground
The story primarily drives lateral hire and legal market intelligence rather than a discrete transactional mandate, but it has direct implications for project finance and energy transition practices at the City offices of elite US firms competing for the same clients. Klugman's focus on project financings (structured arrangements used to finance large infrastructure assets, repaid from the project's own cash flows), tax equity investments, and renewable energy M&A will put Milbank's Chicago team in direct competition with established London and New York desks advising the same sponsors and financial institutions. No transaction-specific advisers are named. A trainee rotating into a project finance or energy transition team would assist with legal opinion coordination for multi-jurisdictional project financings, due diligence on IP and licence conditions for renewable assets, and drafting CP (conditions precedent) checklists for drawdown under project finance facilities.
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