Corporate lawyer Joshua Thompson (pictured) former general counsel and secretary of Jefferies Finance LLC, joined Proskauer Rose LLP as a partner in New York. Thompson covers leveraged finance, specializing in acquisition finance and debt transactions for investment banks. Before Jefferies, Thompson was at White & Case LLP.

BNP Paribas SA appointed Adnan Zuberi as a director on the structured credit desk in New York. He reports to managing director Jerome Wong, head of credit structuring, Americas.

Zuberi joins from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., where he was an executive director in structured credit and was responsible for structuring for North American real money accounts. Prior to that, he spent five years at UBS and worked in Credit Suisse Group's collateralized debt obligation group.

Macquarie Capital Advisors has added Morgan Edwards as a managing director in its debt structuring and advisory group. Previously, he was a managing director in the high yield capital markets group at Bear, Stearns & Co.

Energy investment bank Pritchard Capital Partners LLC tapped Raymond Deacon for its equity research group. While at BMO Capital Markets, Deacon was the senior U.S. exploration and production analyst covering large-, mid- and small-cap oil and gas producers. He will work from New York and Washington.

Broker-dealer BIDS Trading LP named Vivian Maese as general counsel and corporate secretary. Maese was senior vice president and associate general counsel at NYSE Euronext Inc. Before that, she spent more than 20 years as an attorney and managing director at Citigroup Inc. She also served as general counsel for Citi's global transaction services division.

Turnaround advisory Getzler Henrich & Associates LLC has made D. Tyler Mayoras a managing director in Chicago. Previously he was a principal with Mars Equities Inc.

Private equity firm Lovell Minnick Partners LLC appointed John Cochran as a principal in its California office. Cochran joined Lovell Minnick from SV Investment Partners, has worked at J.W. Childs Associates LP and began his career as a financial analyst in the mergers and acquisitions group at Salomon Brothers.

Chicago-based middle market buyout shop Wynnchurch Capital hired Frank Feraco as an industry operating partner. Feraco has worked at Emerson Electric Co., Danaher Corp., Textron Inc., Pentair Inc. and Kohler Co. He was most recently president of Pentair's $1.2 billion tool group.

Harris Williams & Co. made nine promotions. Derek Swaim was named a director; and Vincent Carey, Joseph Conner, Samuel Hendler, Jason Hernandez, Jason Herzog, Gina Majmudar, Eric Reimers and Christopher Rogers were made vice presidents.

Littlejohn & Co. LLC, a private investment firm, promoted Michael Kaplan and Antonio Miranda to principal. Kaplan joined Littlejohn in 2005, having served as a senior associate at Ripplewood Holdings LLC. Miranda joined in 2004. He was previously an associate at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Inc.

Consulting firm Promontory Financial Group named a former senior official of Japan's Financial Services Agency, Yoshio Horimoto, as managing director of its Tokyo-based affiliate, Promontory Financial Group Global Services-Japan LLC.

He comes to Promontory from the office of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, to whom he served as a personal adviser, and was previously a senior deputy director in the Ministry of Finance.

Restructuring firm AlixPartners appointed Cindy Warner as a managing director in its information technology transformation services practice, based in Southfield, Mich. Warner has worked at Accenture, Capgemini and Ernst & Young Consulting.

The firm has appointed two directors: Deepak Goyal in the IT transformation services practice in New York, and Michael Piazza in the performance improvement practice, in Dallas. Goyal was a partner with Accenture in Boston, while Piazza was a consultant with McKinsey & Co.

Partners Neal Goldstein and Thomas Shapira joined Seyfarth Shaw LLP's corporate healthcare practice group, in Chicago. Both were principals with Much Shelist Denenberg Ament & Rubenstein PC.

Advisory firm LECG LLC hired 16 professionals formerly with the financial advisory and litigation consulting services practice of Aon Consulting. Leading them is Roger Siefert, who was a co-global practice leader of the Aon FAS practice, and also served as an Aon executive vice president since 2006.

Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP said Charles Hurst joined its real estate practice group as special counsel in Orange County, Calif.

Hurst was a partner at Snell & Wilmer LLP.

In New York, Jerry Canada joined Crowell & Moring LLP's intellectual property group as a partner. Canada, who covers patent and other IP litigation, comes to the firm from Kenyon & Kenyon LLP.

Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP said Diane Lifton, formerly the drug and medical device team leader at Gibbons PC, joined the firm in its New York and Jersey City, N.J., offices.