Weil Gotshal & Manges' City arm has bagged a major public M&A mandate, advising opposite Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer on the $4bn (£1.96bn) sale of educational publishing operation Harcourt.

Weil Gotshal acted for the buyer, Boston-based publisher Houghton Mifflin, with London-based M&A partner Ian Hamilton taking the headline role.

The instruction marks a coup for the US firm's London operation, which is best known for its work with buy-out houses.

The US-based law firm secured its role after advising Irish group Riverdeep on its $1.75bn (£854m) acquisition of Houghton last year.

The deal pits Weil Gotshal against Freshfields in a big-ticket transaction for the second time this year after the two squared up on Terra Firma's £3.2bn bid for EMI, with the US firm acting for the private equity house.

Freshfields is this time acting for the seller of Harcourt – Anglo-Dutch media giant Reed Elsevier, which will receive £1.8bn in cash with the remainder paid in stock.

Reed is a regular client of Freshfields and, earlier this year, the magic circle firm advised on its disposal of Harcourt's international and assessment divisions to market rival Pearson for £464m.

The latest deal, which is expected to complete early next year, marks the final stage in a sweeping plan announced by Reed at the beginning of the year to offload its entire Harcourt education division.

Freshfields is fielding a heavyweight team on the deal led by London-based corporate partner Julian Long, with support from corporate partner David Crook and associate Michael Hilton. The line-up also included partners from across the firm's finance, tax, antitrust, real estate, IP/IT, pensions and employment divisions.

The deal is the latest disposal to hit the educational publishing sector after Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer offloaded its education division this summer to private equity giant Bridgepoint in a £488m sale.