"Sometimes one wakes up and says 'I can't believe I have this opportunity' and you just seize it," says Valerie Ford Jacob as she sits in the Fleet Street headquarters of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

The former senior partner of Fried Frank, now a partner in the magic circle firm's New York office, is talking to Legal Week about her move and discussing her recent role advising buyout house CVC on its sale of Formula 1 to Liberty Media.

Jacob joined Freshfields in New York two years ago as part of a three-partner capital markets team, with her move coming shortly after she stepped down from her leadership post at the New York firm.

Her recruitment came as part of Freshfields' long-awaited push into the New York market. The firm also hired Peter Lyons, a former head of Shearman & Sterling's M&A practice; Mitchell Presser, a former Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz M&A partner; and former Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom banking partner James Douglas, in addition to the Fried Frank team. The firm is thought to have broken lockstep for some of the hires.

Clients want to go to a firm with a great brand name, but they also want to go to a lawyer who has a good name too – and we have hired great names

Two years on, Jacob says the group has gelled into an effective team in the short time it has been working together. "If you walk down the halls of Freshfields New York, it is as if we have been practising together for 20 years and that is a great feeling," she says.

Jacob's move came about through a connection with Freshfields' US litigation head Aaron Marcu, who she describes as "one of my closest friends".

"I thought, 'what should I do next?' I had been at Fried Frank for a long time, it is a great firm – I built the corporate department, I built the capital markets department, I brought it through the downturn – but I had come out of management and new management had come in, and there is an old saying, 'an old leader should not be around new leaders,'" Jacob says.

"Aaron one day said – 'why don't you come to Freshfields?' I met a few people and decided it was very exciting," she says.

Jacob says the firm's goal in the US is twofold: "One is to be a great US law firm – and I think we are – and two is to be a great international law firm and to be able to offer advice across any jurisdiction [with] the best people for clients."

The New York legal market is notoriously competitive but Jacob says the litigation team, which expanded in 2009, helped blaze a trail for the magic circle firm in the city, making it easier for the new corporate partners. "They were the second wave of pioneers in establishing Freshfields in New York…representing all of the banks in major, major matters during the regulatory crisis after the downturn," she comments.

Because of this work building Freshfields' reputation in the US, particularly among Manhattan's financial community, Jacob says: "If I had said to Bank of America Merrill Lynch or JP Morgan before I left, 'we are going to Freshfields', their response would have been 'that's great', not 'what?'"

Jacob argues that the calibre of lawyers the firm has brought in in recent years means clients are now more receptive.

"Clients want to go to a firm with a great brand name, but they also want to go to a lawyer who has a good name too – and we have hired great names," she says.

Despite this, Freshfields has its work cut out to compete against the Wall Street elite, with their deep roots in the highly competitive market and higher partner profits.

Litigator Michael Lacovara, who was a member of the firm's four-strong senior management team, recently jumped ship for Latham & Watkins only six months into his management stint – a rare but potentially increasingly common example of a US firm hiring from the magic circle for New York.

Jacob says of his move: "Firms are more than any individual. They are not only a collection of individuals but also an institution and a brand. People make personal decisions but we are a strong group of people and it hasn't affected us, we continue to be on the big cases and representing the clients."

One example of this is Jacob's recent involvement advising Freshfields' private equity client CVC on its sale of Formula 1 to media company Liberty Global, in a deal led from London by CVC relationship partner Charles Hayes.

Jacob says the deal "is a perfect example of one of many things that people in the US have been working on across the network".

Firms are more than any individual

Freshfields has a longstanding relationship with CVC and F1, advising the buyout house on its initial acquisition of F1 in 2005 with a team led by current senior partner Ed Braham and private equity partner Chris Bown, who subsequently joined CVC in 2014.

Hayes says that Freshfields has "advised CVC on all aspects of the investment" over the years.

According to Hayes, Freshfields became involved in the latest deal on Sunday 1 May this year. "I remember it clearly because that was the day my partnership became effective and secondly, Val and I spent time on the phone with the CVC team thinking about what kind of structure an investment by Liberty Media might take," he says.

Other key deals for the New York corporate team include acting for food company Sysco on its acquisition of European food-service distributor Brakes for £2.2bn, and advising private equity firm Advent International on its disposal of mental health provider the Priory Group for £1.5bn.

The firm is keen to build on the structure it has established in New York during the past couple of years. It is hoping that deals like the F1 sale will highlight to clients the firm's sweetspot – big cross-border mandates that allow it to bring its New York partners into play alongside their international colleagues.

The scale of the competition across the Atlantic means that despite Freshfields' undeniable progress, achieving its goal is still likely to be a tough ask.