Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) has hired a team of partners from Irwin Mitchell to kickstart its City litigation practice.
The San Francisco-based law firm is bringing in Jonathan Wheeler, Alan Owens and Kevin Roberts from national firm Irwin Mitchell as equity partners, with all three expected to be in place by the end of June.
The triple partner hire gives MoFo experience in insolvency and asset tracing work, civil and criminal fraud and competition and financial litigation, as well as general commercial litigation.
Wheeler, who trained at Withers and moved to Irwin Mitchell as a partner in 2004, will head the new litigation team, which before the hires consisted of just one associate and an of counsel.
Wheeler told Legal Week: “This is the perfect fit for us. The benefits and potential of being in a strong litigation practice and developing it in the UK are very exciting.”
Owens added: “[MoFo] very much has the feel of a firm that is consistently on the move. That was the attraction to us.”
MoFo has a strong litigation practice in the US but has, until now, failed to replicate that in London. The firm is now trying to build up all of its core US strengths in the City including restructuring, insolvency and real estate finance.
The trio takes the firm’s London partner count to 19 with particular strength in outsourcing and life sciences. Last year the office moved to set up a structured finance practice with the hire of Peter Green and Jeremy Jennings-Mares from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
In a statement Irwin Mitchell said: “It is unsurprising that we are on the shopping list when new entrants seek to establish a presence. In a broadly-based growing contentious practice like ours, occasional departures add to the opportunities for internal progression and give additional scope to our recruitment programme.”
