Senior Freehills partner Leon Pasternak will join Merrill Lynch as vice chairman and managing director of M&A, a firm source has confirmed. The snaring of Pasternak is part of a broader recruitment push by the investment bank which notably included the poaching of ten bankers from the UBS property team and ten traders from the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Pasternak move is the latest in a series of high profile movements including David Williamson's shift from Blake Dawson to BHP and John Holland GC Anthony Arrow moving to Allens Arthur Robinson.