Davis Polk Poaches Debevoise M&A Chief in Dealmaker Talent War

Davis Polk & Wardwell hired a top deals lawyer from rival Debevoise & Plimpton to boost the Wall Street’s firm’s presence in Northern California.

Michael Diz is joining Davis Polk as a partner, the firm said Monday. Diz spent more than 20 years at Debevoise, co-leading its mergers and acquisitions group and the firm’s San Francisco office. He steered the Debevoise team advising Verizon Communications in its $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications Parent in September.

Diz is “an important addition to our Northern California team, particularly as we continue to strengthen our private equity M&A capabilities,” said Neil Barr, the firm’s managing partner.

The move comes less than a year after Barr pledged to make lateral partner hiring a priority at the firm, known for advising top banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and UBS. Diz is “an anchoring hire” in Davis Polk’s plan to build out its Northern California presence, Barr said.

The firm—like many of its Wall Street peers—traditionally has been an infrequent player in the lateral market, opting instead to develop talent from within. But it and several rivals changed course in recent years, overhauling longstanding pay systems to better compete for rainmakers.

Davis Polk moved to a modified lockstep pay model and raised the high end of its compensation scale, but has yet to join the wave of firms adding non-equity partner tiers to their lawyer ranks. Debevoise has also stuck to a single-tier partnership and remains one of the last holdouts with a seniority-based partner pay model. It has seen relatively few partner exits over the last year, except for a a trio of asset management partners bolted for Davis Polk in August.

Davis Polk’s “plans for continued investment and growth in Northern California are very exciting,” Diz said in a statement. He moved to California from New York in 2021 to help launch Debevoise’s San Francisco office, which has now grown to more than 40 lawyers.

He has represented TPG, Kelso & Company, and Providence Equity Partners, among other clients. Diz represented hedge fund billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s family office last year in an investment in SpaceX, part of the company’s $1.25 billion tender offer, and steered the Dolan family in MSG Entertainment’s 2021 acquisition of MSG Networks.

Diz “has advised marquee private equity and corporate clients on some of their most significant and transformative M&A matters and has strong experience across a range of sectors,” Alan Denenberg, a corporate partner who co-leads Davis Polk’s Northern California office, said in a statement.

Davis Polk has about 75 lawyers based in the Redwood City, Calif., outpost, which is also helmed by litigator Neal Potischman. Paul Scrivano, the former global head of Ropes & Gray’s M&A group, leads Davis Polk’s West Coast M&A practice after joining the firm in 2022.

The firm’s M&A team advised on 119 deals worth $169.1 billion in 2024, landing in the tenth spot on Bloomberg Law’s league tables. Davis Polk represented Sycamore Partners in its $10 billion take private of drugstore chain Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. last week.

Barr said the firm is looking to scale up its corporate, M&A, and private equity practices, and potentially an emerging companies practice and other ancillary corporate practices.