Hudson & Daghlian build team at O’Melveny & Myers

Matthew Hudson has joined US law firm O’Melveny & Myers to build its corporate finance and private equity practice. John Daghlian, who has left the private equity funds practice at SJ Berwin to join the US firm, joins Hudson. Hudson is also ex-SJ Berwin private equity, but on the transaction rather than fund side, although he left there in the late 1990s to join Credit Suisse First Boston subsidiary Cabot Square Capital before in 2000 starting far blue, the UK early stage technology investor, which he sold a year ago to Tower Gate. Between far blue and O’Melveny & Myers he worked as MJ Hudson on a commercial and legal consultancy basis firms in the private equity industry, such as Coller Capital.

Over the next 18 months Hudson and Daghlian aim to hire some 20 private equity lawyer and it is expected that three or four of those will be partner level. This will meet the firm’s expansion plans in the UK, although there are longer term plans to tackle the continental European legal market for private equity work.

O’Melveny & Myers has just Hudson and Daghlian in Europe doing private equity work, although it has already built a reputation for itself in this market in the US.