Katten announced today that Bret T. Diskin has joined the firm’s Corporate practice as a partner in Chicago to focus on private equity and other mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions.

“Bret’s arrival bolsters our industry-leading capacity to deliver top-tier client service and handle middle-market deal-making across the globe,” said Kimberly T. Smith, co-chair of Katten’s global M&A/Private Equity practice.“He brings significant experience advising private equity sponsors and corporate clients on transactions throughout a variety of industries, including healthcare investments where we continue to see heavy activity.”

Diskin’s practice focuses on public and private mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, joint ventures, initial public offerings and other capital markets transactions, and venture capital investments, as well as securities disclosure and corporate governance matters.

Prior to joining Katten, Diskin was an attorney at Sidley Austin LLP, working in the Chicago office with a stint in London for nearly two years. At Sidley, he handled complex cross-border transactions involving a variety of jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Spain, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

Katten is a full-service law firm with nearly 700 attorneys in locations across the United States and in London and Shanghai. Clients seeking sophisticated, high-value legal services turn to Katten for counsel locally, nationally and internationally. The firm’s core areas of practice include commercial finance, corporate, financial markets and funds, insolvency and restructuring, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, structured finance and securitization, transactional tax planning, and trusts and estates. Katten represents public and private companies in numerous industries, as well as a number of government and nonprofit organizations and individuals. For more information, visit katten.com.