Kirkland & Ellis has hired a real estate finance partner from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Jonathan Birks joins the debt finance practice group and acts on leveraged, real estate and private equity work.

The US firm has focused recently on enhancing its private equity practice through the additions of Stuart Boyd and David Holdsworth from Linklaters earlier in 2016. Both partners had followed Roger Johnson who made the same move in 2015.