Weil Gotshal poaches Sidley Austin's capital solutions partner James Crooks in a transatlantic lateral hire as the practice area becomes a declared strategic priority
Weil Gotshal & Manges has hired James Crooks from Sidley Austin as a capital solutions partner, following a ten-year stint at Sidley. The move is described by Financial News as reflecting capital solutions becoming a 'strategic priority' for the US firm. Capital solutions is a practice area sitting at the intersection of structured finance, private credit, and bespoke lending — it typically involves arranging complex hybrid financing packages (combining debt and equity-linked instruments) for corporates, private equity sponsors, and special situations borrowers who cannot or do not wish to access conventional syndicated loan or public bond markets. Demand for capital solutions mandates has grown sharply as traditional leveraged finance windows (large syndicated bank loans and high-yield bonds) periodically close under market stress, pushing issuers toward private and bespoke alternatives. The hire is notable for two reasons. First, a ten-year lateral move out of a major US firm signals that individual practitioners are commanding significant packages to move, reflecting market competition for scarce capital solutions expertise. Second, Weil's explicit framing of this as a strategic priority suggests the firm is building out the practice with further lateral hires in view, which would expand its ability to compete for complex European financing mandates from London. The broader backdrop is a leveraged finance market in which private credit funds have taken a structural share of deal flow from bank syndications — making capital solutions advisory a growth area for firms with strong sponsor and lender relationships.
Why this matters
The capital solutions lateral hire market reflects the structural shift in European financing from broadly syndicated bank lending toward private, bespoke, and structured credit. Firms building capital solutions teams are positioning to advise on the most complex and lucrative financings — NAV lending (loans secured against a fund's net asset value), preferred equity, PIK (payment-in-kind) instruments, and hybrid capital — that cannot be executed through vanilla loan or bond markets. Weil's investment in this practice is consistent with US firm strategies to deepen leverage finance and credit product capability in London, where deal flow from PE sponsors is concentrated. The hire of a partner with a decade of institutional relationships is the fastest route to building origination pipeline.
On the Ground
A trainee in a capital solutions team would assist with reviewing and marking up facility agreement schedules, particularly bespoke economic terms and margin ratchet provisions in hybrid instruments. They would also coordinate legal opinion requests from local counsel in multiple jurisdictions, manage CP (conditions precedent) checklists, and review security document packages where the financing involves collateral over fund assets or portfolio companies.
Interview prep
Soundbite
Capital solutions mandates — the highest-margin financing work — are migrating from banks to US firms with specialist private credit benches.
Question you might get
“What are the key legal differences between a capital solutions financing and a standard leveraged loan, and why might a private equity sponsor prefer the former in the current market?”
Full answer
Weil Gotshal has hired Sidley Austin's James Crooks as a capital solutions partner, signalling the practice area as a declared strategic priority for the firm. Capital solutions work — bespoke structured financings combining debt, preferred equity, and hybrid instruments for borrowers outside conventional markets — has grown as private credit funds have taken share from syndicated bank lending. The hire underscores a broader pattern of US firms in London competing aggressively for the capital solutions market, which sits at the most complex and highly remunerated end of the financing spectrum. This trend is likely to sustain further lateral movement as firms seek practitioners with established sponsor and lender relationships to build origination pipeline in a market where deal flow follows personal networks.
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