Mayer Brown has lured a large capital markets team from Morrison & Foerster, including five partners, three counsel and a number of associates.

One of the team leaders, Anna Pinedo, will serve as a co-leader of Mayer Brown's capital markets practice, focusing on securities and derivatives. She represents issuers, investment banks and investors in financing transactions, including public offerings and private placements of equity and debt securities, as well as structured notes and other products.

The team joining Mayer Brown this week also includes James Tanenbaum, who focused on corporate finance and the structuring of capital markets transactions, and Jerry Marlatt, who represents clients in covered bonds, public and private offerings of debt and commercial paper. Two tax partners, Thomas Humphreys and Remmelt Reigersman, are also among the group.

Humphreys was the co-chair of MoFo's federal tax practice group and tax department. He is a longtime adjunct professor at New York University School of Law.

Both Humphreys and Marlatt were former senior counsel at MoFo, while the other three were partners.

Pinedo declined to say how many attorneys in all would move to Mayer Brown from MoFo. She said on Monday afternoon that “it's still very much a moving figure.”

Craig Martin, Morrison & Foerster's firmwide managing partner, did not directly address the departures when asked for comment. “Our capital markets and tax practices remain strong across the firm, and we continue to serve our clients' legal needs,” he said in a statement.

Mayer Brown has been on a hiring roll in New York, adding corporate partner Iliana Kirova from Ropes & Gray, Scott Zemser from Allen & Overy in banking and finance, and litigator Glen Kopp from Bracewell.

Describing her motivation for the move this week, Pinedo said Mayer Brown shared “a lot of financial institution clients with us.” While she acknowledged MoFo also touts its focus on financial services as well as tech and life sciences, she said she was attracted to Mayer Brown's “global financial services-oriented platform,” citing its deep bench of lawyers in the area.

She said her clients are “very pleased to continue working with us at Mayer Brown.” She declined to name specific clients of the team or disclose the value of the business they could bring to Mayer Brown.

Mayer Brown's lack of a mandatory retirement age for partners was another factor in the move, Pinedo said.

The group has practiced together more than 10 years, Pinedo said. “We're a tight-knit group, and we work with the same clients,” she said, with the tax partners working on the same financial transactions.

All the lawyers are joining Mayer Brown's New York office, except for Reigersman, who will be based in Mayer Brown's Northern California offices, Pinedo said.