Sidley Austin Broadens Raid on Cravath in Capital Markets Build

Sidley Austin hired partner Ellen Park, marking another partner departure from the storied Wall Street firm Cravath Swaine & Moore this year.

Park is joining Sidley as a partner in its capital markets practice in New York, the firm announced on Wednesday, as it continues its lateral build.

Park follows Scott Bennett, former co-head of Cravath’s venture capital and growth equity and digital assets practices, who joined Sidley last week as head of its technology capital markets group. Park also becomes the tenth partner to leave Cravath, which historically had been immune to partner attrition.

Sidley “has been very strategic and intentional in how it has built out a variety of capabilities that are necessary to serving clients today,” Park said in an interview. “From my conversations, it was clear that it has shown that it can execute on that strategy in a sustained and thoughtful way.”

Ellen Park

Park joined Cravath as an associate in 2017 and became partner in January. She advises corporate issuers, investors, financial institutions and other parties in various capital markets transactions, including IPOs, venture capital and growth equity transactions and other debt and equity offerings.

She and Bennett worked together for years building out Cravath’s venture capital practice and advising on high-profile deals, including Robinhood’s $1.9 billion IPO in 2021 and crypto-company Galaxy Digital’s SEC listing. The pair have also advised Goldman Sachs on the underwriter side for various IPOs, including BitGo’s $2.08 billion IPO earlier this year in the first crypto IPO of 2026.

Sidley’s leadership team has been focused on expanding in key areas and there has been much activity in the capital markets space, Sidley management committee chair Yvette Ostolaza said. Park works with existing Sidley clients, she said.

“The secret sauce is asking your clients who are people that are strong out there in the market in areas that you want to grow and that you want to consolidate their work, and then bringing on teams that will work beautifully together,” Ostolaza said.