Top UK Law Firms Capture M&A Deals Market Share Amid US Push

Four of London’s Magic Circle law firms are seeing their US investments pay off as they climb the list of leading deals advisers.

Freshfields, Linklaters, Clifford Chance, and A&O Shearman were among the top 20 mergers and acquisitions dealmakers last year, according to Bloomberg data. Their ascendance follows a push to grow stateside that began with Freshfields’ 2019 hire of New York partner Ethan Klingsberg from Cleary Gottlieb.

“The US has become the priority,” said Thomas McGrath, US global practice head at Linklaters. “It’s the biggest legal market in the world, it’s got the best and most interesting work and it’s important for us to be able to serve our clients here with equal capacity that we can offer them in London, in Europe, and in Asia.”

London firms are fighting back on North American turf after a decade of losing ground to US competitors like Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis in their own backyards. The US firms, which generally have larger profits pools, have grown their London bases and tried to squeeze out local competitors by offering huge pay packages.

The UK firms’ work on large deals propelled them to the leaderboard on Bloomberg Law’s league tables. Lawyers from Freshfields and Linklaters guided Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.'s acquisition of Covestro AG for € 112.7 billion ($13 billion). Freshfields and Clifford Chance steered Deutsche Bahn AG’s sale of DB Schenker to DSV A/S for €14.3 billion ($15.9 billion).

They also landed megadeals in the US. Freshfields steered Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.'s planned purchase Juniper Networks Inc. for $14 billion in January, while Freshfields and Linklaters advised on Johnson & Johnson’s deal to buy Shockwave Medical Inc. for $13.1 billion in April.

Read more: For a list of the Top 20 firms and an interactive graphic with the deals they won, click here for Bloomberg Law’s mergers and acquisitions league tables

Emphasis on the US market, home to the most active and lucrative M&A market, has led to firms making more decisions stateside.

Lawyers in some London offices feel that “power bases have shifted,” said Adil Lalani, a UK partner at search firm Macrae. “There’s definitely a shift in terms of focus—who has the biggest voice, where money is going to be spent, and who gets it first,” he said.

Freshfields has bristled at the “Magic Circle” tag—used to describe five of London’s oldest and most prestigious firm—as it has built a global presence, focusing on Asia and the US. The firm, which has doubled its US headcount to about 500 lawyers over the last five years, was the top M&A adviser among UK-founded firms last year and cracked the top five globally.

Freshfileds hired Claire James last year from Willkie Farr & Gallagher to serve as head of its New York private equity practice. The firm also hired former Latham & Watkins partners Neal Reenan and Ian Bushner to serve as global co-head of private capital and head of US private capital, respectively.

Linklaters early last year landed George Casey and a team of five New York M&A lawyers from Shearman & Sterling. The attorneys have led significant deals for the firm, which boosted its position on the league tables. Casey and others guided Rio Tinto on its $6.7 billion acquisition of Arcadium Lithium Plc in October.

The firm has 46 partners in the US, and a total of about 200 lawyers, said McGrath. “We’d like to about double that in the next couple of years, and that will focus on M&A, private equity and related transactional practices,” he said.

Clifford Chance has also boosted its deals roster stateside, while seeing a 28% revenue gain in the US last year. The firm had 117 Americas partners in 2024, up nearly a third over the previous year. It also launched a Houston office in June 2023, giving it a pathway into the lucrative Texas deals market.

“I worked in the New York office seven years ago, and it was very, very rare, and very hard, for us to engage with the market,” said Charles Adams, global managing partner at Clifford Chance. “Now there is a market that’s responding to us and talent really interested in talking to us.”

Allen & Overy made the biggest recent splash in the US, merging with Manhattan’s Shearman & Sterling last year. The combined firm ranked 19th on Bloomberg Law’s M&A league tables.

Slaughter & May is the lone Magic Circle firm to largely sit out the race to capture US market share. The firm has instead focused on remaining smaller than its peers, but producing high profitability through deep relationships with blue-chip clients.

That could change if the firm decides to make a play in lucrative practice areas largely centered stateside, said Lalani, the recruiter.

“They want to broaden out their corporate base into private credit and private equity,” he said, “which will develop on the current strengths.”