Linklaters has hired veteran Wall Street dealmaker Mark Gordon from Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz to become managing partner of the UK Magic Circle firm’s Americas business.
Gordon joins in New York and will also co-chair the firm’s global M&A practice as it seeks to further expand its footprint in the lucrative US market.
He becomes the latest high-profile partner to exit Wachtell as competition for talent continues to heat up, particularly impacting firms like Wachtell that still maintain a lockstep pay model that largely compensates lawyers based on seniority rather than performance.
Gordon brings more than 30 years’ experience to the role, having advised on some of Wall Street’s biggest M&A deals, including Alexion Pharmaceuticals’ $39bn sale to AstraZeneca and Analog Devices’ $21bn acquisition of Maxim Integrated Products. He is due to take up his new position in November.
Aedamar Comiskey, Linklaters’ senior partner and chair, said: “We have a clear ambition: to build a top-tier team in the US as a core part of our global offering. As a preeminent M&A lawyer, Mark joining us is a landmark advance toward this ambition. Alongside our other recent strategic hires, we will use this momentum to accelerate our US growth.”
Gordon joins Linklaters after spending all of his legal career at Wachtell, which he joined in 1994 after graduating from Harvard Law School.
George Casey, chair of the Americas and global chair of corporate, said: “We are creating something distinctive in the market: elite US capability, fully integrated with an unparalleled global platform. Mark’s decision to join the firm is a major step for our US M&A practice and I look forward to working with him.”
Gordon succeeds previous Americas managing partner Tom McGrath at the end of his four year term that started in 2022. Since then, Linklaters has grown its US partnership by more than 75% and more than doubled US revenue. The firm said Gordon will work closely with its senior leadership team to help drive the next phase of its US growth.
He adds to recent partner additions in the US that include New York litigation duo Christopher Boehning and Daniel Levi, who joined from Paul Weiss in July – a hiring coup that Linklaters described as a “milestone” for its US growth ambitions.
Wachtell, meanwhile, recoils from another high-profile loss to its ranks, following the July departure of renowned corporate trial lawyer William Savitt who defected to Gibson Dunn & Crutcher along with a team of litigators.
It also lost its finance and restructuring practice head Joshua Feltman to Kirkland & Ellis in April.
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