Goodwin Procter has hired M&A lawyer Joshua Zachariah from Kirkland & Ellis as it seeks to ramp up its transactions team in anticipation of a growth in new deals.

Zachariah joins the firm as a partner in Boston, though he will split his time between the firm’s East and West Coast offices given his previous deal-making experience in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Zachariah arrives at Goodwin after a decade as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in San Francisco. He also spent five years as an associate at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in New York.

His experience spans all types of M&A matters for both public companies and private equity clients, including domestic and cross-border deals, joint ventures, strategic investments and take-privates. He also advises on corporate governance and shareholder activism matters.

Over his career, he has advised on more than $100bn of deals, notably in the tech and life sciences sectors.

Stuart Cable, Goodwin’s global M&A chair, said the firm’s strengths in technology, life sciences and private equity put it at a “unique advantage for our M&A clients seeking to capitalise on the new wave of opportunities at the intersection of these disruptive industries”.

Goodwin was third in Mergermarket’s Q1 -Q3 US M&A deal table by volume behind Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins, advising on 179 deals valued at $38.7bn, up from fourth for the same period last year. It was fifth in the equivalent global ranking – the same ranking it achieved in 2019.

Goodwin has recently advised on mega-deals including Slack’s $27.7bn sale to Salesforce and T-Mobile US’s $26.5bn merger with Sprint Corporation.

In October, it hired licensing partner Adam Bellack in Washington DC from Hogan Lovells to support its ongoing life sciences push and in September it hired a five-partner private equity team from Sidley Austin in London.