Freshfields Launches Boston Office, Adds Latham M&A Partner (2)

Freshfields hired Latham & Watkins M&A partner Matthew Goulding to open a Boston office, expanding its aggressive push into the US legal market.

The office, announced Monday, will be London-founded Freshfields’ fifth in the US as the firm makes significant progress on its plan to expand in the states. Boston is attracting a string of Big Law entrants, including Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Paul Hastings, which launched in the city last year.

Goulding, who advises on private equity transactions, joined Latham’s Boston office in 2020 from a long career at Weil, Gotshal & Manges. He served as chair of Latham’s Boston corporate department and worked on deals on behalf of private equity clients including The Sterling Group, Leonard Green & Partners, H.I.G. Capital, and others.

Freshfields partner Matthew Goulding

Firm handout

Freshfields’ revenue jumped more than 18% to £2.1 billion ($2.63 billion) in its latest financial year, which ended April 30, 2024. The firm’s Americas business grew 25%, to £391.1 million, a figure that has more than doubled since 2021, according to UK public filings.

The firm’s deals practice ranked No. 4 among law firms by total value in 2024, according to Bloomberg data. Its lawyers advised on more than $264 billion in deals over the year. Fellow UK firms Linklaters, Clifford Chance, and A&O Shearman also saw their deals share grow, with all of them among the top 20 mergers and acquisitions dealmakers last year, according to Bloomberg data.

Georgia Dawson, the firm’s senior partner, telegraphed the Boston move in an interview with Bloomberg Law last year.

The Boston office is in some ways an outgrowth of the firm’s success in Northern California, where Freshfields launched in 2020 and now houses about 75 lawyers in Silicon Valley and San Francisco outposts. The firm’s other US offices are in New York and Washington.

The West Coast practice represents private capital, tech, life sciences, and growth companies—areas that are also prominent in Boston, said Sarah Solum, Freshfields’ Silicon Valley-based US managing partner.

“We already have clients there,” Solum said in an interview. “In a lot of ways it mirrors what we did in Silicon Valley. The firm had clients here for a long time before opening, and the same is true in Boston.”

Boston’s proximity to top law schools and its cluster of top firms will also help in the firm’s recruiting, Solum said.

Goulding worked at Latham with Neal Reenan and Ian Bushner, who joined Freshfields last year and now serve as global co-head of private capital and head of US private capital, respectively. The duo in 2017 helped Kirkland & Ellis launch a Boston office before joining Latham in 2020.

Freshfields’ “client first” approach was a “key perspective” that Goulding said drew him to the firm.

Working “in a collaborative environment without ego or other dynamics at play is incredibly valuable and in my perspective is the way to serve clients,” he said.

Paul Kukish, global co-chair of Latham’s M&A and private equity practice, said the firm wishes Goulding the best and that the firm is excited about its “momentum” coming off a strong year for its M&A and private equity practices.