Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson has added two partners in its mergers and acquisitions and private equity practice, as the firm seeks to further bolster its trans-Atlantic transactional offerings.
Kirkland & Ellis’ Rhett McPhie joined Fried Frank in London, and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius’ Nathan Pusey joined the firm in New York on Tuesday. Both were partners at their former firms and are the latest in a series of lateral additions Fried Frank has made to its M&A team in recent months.
Steven Epstein, Fried Frank’s managing partner and co-head of the M&A and PE practice group, said in an interview that growing that practice area has been a priority for the firm. Fried Frank works on a financial year that ends February 27, last Friday, and Epstein said that the M&A group's performance in 2025 was some of the best it has ever seen.
Epstein did not speak to specific revenue figures for the firm, but said that in 2025, Fried Frank saw close to $5 trillion in deal volume in the M&A space at large, a number which he said would make it the second strongest year in the M&A space behind 2021, which just surpassed $5 trillion in deal volume.
According to Epstein, the market had more than 70 deals in 2025 valued at $10 billion or more, and he expects to see continued strength in the market despite the ongoing uncertainties in the economic and political landscape.
“A lot of the uncertainties .. remain for boardrooms and C-suites, like affordability, inflation, interest rates, geopolitical risks, tariffs, onshoring production, or onshoring manufacturing,” Epstein said. “They existed in 2024, 2025, and they persist in 2026. Having said that, I think a lot of C-suites and boardrooms have learned how to price those risks into their transactions. And what you're seeing is very large transactions getting done.”
Much of the firm's client work is happening across borders between the United Kingdom and the United States, Epstein said, noting that this is supported by Fried Frank’s years-long project to expand its asset management and M&A and private equity offerings into London. According to Epstein, the growth of Fried Frank’s offerings in London has led to an organic client growth in the area that overlaps with the firm’s clients in America, which then led to trans-Atlantic deals.
Lateral partner additions like McPhie and Pusey help meet increased demand in the M&A and private equity space, Epstein said. Including those two new laterals, Epstein said the practice now has 26 partners and just over 100 total lawyers across the firm.
A representative for Morgan Lewis said in an email to Law.com that the firm wishes Pusey well. Representatives for Kirkland did not immediately respond to requests for comment on McPhie’s departure.
The trans-Atlantic growth effort has involved several lateral hires, including McPhie and Pusey. At the beginning of February, Fried Frank also added Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman’s mergers and acquisitions and private equity practice leader Stephen Amdur in New York.
In Washington, D.C., the firm added antitrust partner Shawn Johnson from Crowell & Moring in January. The firm also took another mergers and acquisitions partner from Kirkland, Saif Shah Mohammed, for its D.C. office in December, making McPhie the second Kirkland mergers and acquisitions partner to move to Fried Frank in the last six months.
While the firm has been adding lateral partners to its mergers and acquisitions and private equity practice, it has also lost partners in that same practice over the past few months. In September, the firm lost two mergers and acquisitions partners when Andrea Gede-Lange moved to Clifford Chance and Thomas Lee went to Latham & Watkins, both in New York.
Epstein said that the firm has made and added more partners to the mergers and acquisitions and private equity team than it has lost. He said competition for strong talent remains robust, and the firm is itself in talks with more potential laterals for the mergers and acquisitions and private equity practice, as well as other practices like antitrust, though he declined to provide specific names.
Mar 3
Deal Summary
