Kevin O'Connor will join Bracewell & Giuliani LLP's Hartford, Conn., office as a litigation partner. Until Tuesday, he was the U.S. associate attorney general. He will cover multi-jurisdictional commercial litigation matters and assist with white collar matters handled by the firm's New York, Washington and Texas offices.

Earlier in his career, O'Connor was senior counsel with the Securities and Exchange Commission's division of enforcement.

Japan's Nomura Holdings Inc. hired six senior bankers for its non-Japan Asia investment banking team. Marc Benton arrived as a managing director, head of natural resources investment banking. Benton was group head of Asia Pacific energy, power and chemicals investment banking at Citigroup Inc. in Hong Kong.

Managing director Shaheryar Chishty becomes head of industrial investment banking. She was head of the Asian industrials group at Citigroup.

Robert Chiu joined as a managing director, head of telecommunications, media and technology investment banking. Previously, he was regional head of TMT investment banking, Asia Pacific, and chairman of Taiwan investment banking for Merrill Lynch & Co. in Hong Kong.

Neeraj Hora comes aboard as a managing director, head of equity-linked solutions. He was responsible for West Coast equity-linked coverage of technology, media and healthcare companies for Barclays Capital in San Francisco and Menlo Park, Calif.

Apurva Choudhary becomes an executive director and head of power and utilities investment banking, based in Singapore. Previously, he was head of regional power and utilities at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., covering Asia.

Executive director Mark Bendall is now head of metals and mining investment banking. Before joining Nomura, he was director of the natural resources group at Deutsche Bank AG in London.

UBS appointed Toshiharu Kojima country head of Japan and chairman and chief executive of UBS Securities Japan. He reports to Rory Tapner, chairman and chief executive of UBS, Asia Pacific, and to Jerker Johansson, chairman and chief executive of UBS Investment Bank. Kojima was vice chairman of Citigroup Principal Investments Japan Co. He began his career at Nomura Securities Co. Ltd. before joining Salomon Brothers Asia Ltd. in 1983.

Senior vice presidents David Martin, Nancy Unrath and Christopher Jacobs joined Imperial Capital LLC's institutional sales and trading group. Martin, a bank debt analyst, arrived from Highland Capital Management LP as a portfolio manager covering the telecom and media sector. Unrath, a bank debt salesperson, was a managing director at Credit Suisse Group in its syndicated loan group. For the past 10 years, Jacobs was a vice president in credit sales with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc. established a high yield trading and research business, hiring Eric Needleman, Jay Lupo, Kevin Eng and their 12 associates.

Needleman will lead the New York office, with Lupo as co-head of sales and Eng as head of high yield research. They arive from KBC Financial Products, where Needleman was head of high yield from 2003 to 2008.

Placement agent C.P. Eaton Partners LLC said Alex Edwards joined its Shanghai office as a vice president to lead its development in Australia, New Zealand and South Asia. Edwards was with Franklin Templeton Investments, based in Hong Kong and London, and, before that, was a vice president at Credit Suisse Group.

Concept Capital named Robert Moore as a managing director and head of the firm's global institutional trading and research business. Moore spent 21 years at Citigroup Global Markets Ltd., where he held several positions, including head of U.S. equities responsible for sales, trading and capital markets.

Paul Dickerson rejoined Haynes and Boone LLP as a Houston-based partner to lead its cleantech practice. Dickerson left the firm in 2005 for the Department of Commerce and was then appointed chief operating officer for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy inside the Department of Energy.

Intellectual property lawyer George Borkowski joined Venable LLP as a partner. Borkowski arrives after two decades at Los Angeles-based Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP, where he was founder and chair of its IP and technology practice, as well as a member of the governing board.

Jenner & Block LLP elected 10 associates to the partnership: litigators Robert Blazejowski, Jeremy Creelan, Jeffrey Eberhard, Brian Hauck, Erin Schrantz, Christopher Tompkins and Martina Vandenberg; Keri Hotaling, environmental, energy and natural resources; and Paul Margolis and Joseph Saltiel, intellectual property.

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP named tax attorney John Anderson and corporate lawyers Neil Chang, Nathan Parker and Victor Snegirev as international counsel to the firm.