Mitchell Presser, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's U.S. head of M&A and global transactions, has joined Morrison & Foerster in New York. Presser will be co-chairman of the firm's global corporate department alongside Eric McCrath and Jackie Liu.

The hire was announced days after Law.com broke the report of his departure from the Magic Circle firm on Wednesday.

Presser worked at Freshfields for five years and had run the firm's U.S. M&A offerings since 2014. He was one of the firm's highest-earning "superpointer" partners, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Presser said he moved to Morrison & Foerster because it complements his specialties in the agriculture, sustainability and life science spaces.

Before joining Freshfields, Presser spent 17 years at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz before helping to found private equity firm Paine & Partners in 2007, which invested heavily in the agricultural space. He also has experience working on high-value deals, including Morgan Stanley's acquisition of U.S. oil pipeline and terminal business TransMontaigne in 2006 and the $15 billion leveraged buyout of Kinder Morgan the same year.

Morrison & Foerster, for its part, has been working to boost its offerings in dealmaking with the opening of its Boston office early last year. Now staffed with 40 attorneys and led by partner David Ephraim, the office works closely with startups that emerge out of Cambridge University's Boston incubator.

McCrath also pointed to the firm's strong presence in San Diego and Northern California, big clients such as biotechnology company Gilead and bench talent led by senior agricultural IP partner Mike Ward, who heads up the firm's life sciences and patent practice groups.

Presser is the linchpin that will bring these developments together, McCrath said, adding "Mitchell is the catalyst to bring everything together."

Morrison & Foerster's decision to invest in a corporate hire, even as M&A transactions dry up amid economic distress, is a long-term play, says McCrath. He added that clients will need strong advisers more when the economy begins to recover, bringing with it new opportunities.

"We don't look at our firm and make investments on a quarter-by-quarter basis," he said. "We are a firm built for the decades and the generations, not this year's partner profits."

The departure represents a setback for Freshfields' U.S. operations after landing a huge lateral with the addition of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton rainmaker Ethan Klingsberg.

For Morrison & Foerster, the hire represents another solid addition to its 400-attorney corporate department. In June, the firm bolstered its international corporate bench with the addition of several Greenberg Traurig partners in Miami who have since been servicing Morrison & Foerster client SoftBank.

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Freshfields US M&A Head Leaves, Setting Back Expansion Efforts