Creative and Skilled Courtroom Advocates
Our litigation team has extensive experience in virtually every type of commercial dispute. We bring in-depth, industry-specific knowledge to every engagement and excel in finding effective solutions before, during and after trial. Our courtroom advocacy, creativity and grit are highly respected in the legal industry. Our litigators function as a litigation boutique within a multinational law firm, collaborating across practices and offices to find creative solutions to our clients’ litigation needs. The results speak for themselves, as seen in our recent successes on behalf of Apache, Equinor Wind, Hilcorp Energy, Kinder Morgan and Southern Copper, to name but a few.
We represent large national and multinational corporations, mid-sized companies, small businesses and individuals in cases with impact outside the courtroom. This includes complex matters across a range of industries, such as construction, energy, finance, healthcare and real estate.
We represent defendants and plaintiffs in trials, appeals and other contested matters throughout the United States.
Our London-based disputes team handles matters in the courts of the United Kingdom. Our combined team routinely handles arbitrations throughout the world under all major arbitration regimes.
Our US-based government investigations specialists regularly appear before various federal departments and agencies, including, most commonly, the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Office of the Inspector General, as well as state investigatory and enforcement agencies.
Updated January 2025
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP provides the highest quality legal advice and representation to clients around the world. The results the firm achieves have set it apart for more than 140 years and have become a model for the modern practice of law. Today, S&C is a leader in each of its core practice areas and in each of its geographic markets. The firm advises a diverse range of clients on major domestic and cross-border M&A and corporate finance transactions, high-stakes litigation and corporate investigations and complex regulatory, tax and estate planning matters. Headquartered in New York, S&C comprises more than 875 lawyers who serve clients around the world through a network of 13 offices, located in leading financial centers in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States.
Main Areas of Practice:
Antitrust: Sullivan & Cromwell represents clients across a broad array of industries and in multiple jurisdictions in merger clearances, criminal antitrust investigations and civil litigation. The firm handles merger clearances for some of the largest and most complex M&A transactions in the world.
Capital Markets: S&C leads global rankings in both volume and value of offerings and on its ability to structure novel and effective transactions in the representation of issuers, underwriters, selling and controlling shareholders, and other market participants globally.
Corporate Governance: S&C’s corporate governance practice draws from across the firm’s preeminent practice areas for a thorough understanding of evolving corporate governance requirements and practices.
Estates & Personal: S&C provides comprehensive and customized service to individuals, families, trustees and charitable institutions on a range of sensitive business and personal affairs. The practice includes all aspects of non-US and US transactional matters, and cross-border trusts and estates litigation.
Executive Compensation/ERISA: S&C advises on a full range of corporate, securities, tax and employment law matters. The firm’s lawyers represent many of the largest global companies on employment arrangements, corporate governance, succession matters and incentive compensation plan design, as well as senior executives in negotiations.
Financial Services: S&C remains the leading global law firm on transactional, regulatory, enforcement and other matters affecting financial institutions. The firm’s expertise extends to clients in the banking; broker-dealer; commodities; futures and derivatives; insurance; and investment management sectors.
Intellectual Property & Technology: S&C assists clients globally with the full spectrum of intellectual property and technology issues, including in significant M&A transactions, complex patent and other IP disputes, as well as in licensing matters.
Investment Management: S&C combines a traditional investment management and an alternative investment management practice to provide expertise in transactional, structuring, trading, advisory and regulatory matters.
Litigation: S&C’s litigators take a global, multidisciplinary approach to every aspect of litigation and regulatory matters, making it the go-to firm for cross-border litigation, a practice strengthened by S&C’s stellar reputation as a corporate, financial and transactional firm.
Mergers & Acquisitions: S&C mobilizes teams of lawyers worldwide for clients
on their largest and most important domestic and cross-border M&A transactions.
A perennial leader in M&A, S&C ranks first by value among law firms over the last 20 years, having acted in over $9 trillion in announced transactions worldwide.
Private Equity: S&C’s private equity practice draws upon the integrated resources and efforts of S&C offices around the world, taking advantage of the firm’s preeminent global capabilities to advise private equity firms, family offices, sovereign wealth funds and other investors of private capital on their most important and complex acquisitions, strategic investments and exits, across a broad range of industries.
Project Development & Finance; Infrastructure: S&C is a leader in project and infrastructure development and finance. The firm has advised on many of the most transformative and complex projects and financings in both developed and emerging markets, including advising clients in joint venture arrangements, M&A, restructurings and public-private partnerships.
Real Estate: S&C’s real estate group combines public/private market expertise and innovative deal-making skills to assist clients in purchasing, selling, developing and financing real estate companies and assets worldwide, and represents clients in restructuring real estate and other assets to facilitate generational transition and/or resolve disputes.
Restructuring & Bankruptcy: S&C is unique in its ability to handle all elements of a corporate restructuring—whether or not an insolvency proceeding is used as a tool.
Tax: S&C’s tax group has a global reputation for innovative tax planning, the successful resolution of tax controversies and providing pivotal tax advice on corporate transactions.
Updated September 2024
Freshfields is a leading global law firm with over 275 years’ experience advising the world’s most prestigious corporations and financial institutions. We pride ourselves on being a top-tier litigation department with a unique combination of subject-matter knowledge, local presence and strategic foresight.
The Freshfields litigation team represents a diverse set of US and global clients, across numerous industries and sectors, who face billions of dollars in potential exposure. Our clients include many of the world’s most recognizable brands and our roster continues to grow as clients increasingly find themselves in need of sophisticated counsel.
Our team of attorneys brings efficient and innovative solutions to our clients’ most pressing legal challenges. As a critical component of the world’s premier international litigation practice, our US litigators routinely handle complex multijurisdictional and cross-border matters and are alert to the specific concerns and collateral consequences of disputes in non-US regions as well as with global regulators.
We have unrivalled experience defending businesses across a range of industries, and by leveraging our 800-strong global litigation team we excel in complex cases that span multiple jurisdictions within and outside the United States. Our team includes nine former senior litigators from the Department of Justice and United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and senior counsel from the Department of Defense, National Security Agency, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and the Office of the White House Counsel who together have decades of experience taking dozens of federal and state trials to verdict—an invaluable weapon in securing the best outcomes for our clients.
Practice areas & sector specializations:
Updated Sep 2024
A&O Shearman distinguishes itself by harnessing the intellectual strength and deep experience of its lawyers across its extensive global footprint. The firm represents many of the world’s leading corporations, financial institutions, emerging growth companies, governments, and state-owned enterprises. Those clients, in turn, continue to choose A&O Shearman for its ability to leverage the knowledge and judgment of one of the world’s largest and most accomplished cross-border legal teams—a team ideally situated to help clients on their complex business transactions.
Our lawyers have vast experience litigating, arbitrating, investigating, and resolving disputes across multiple jurisdictions. We have the depth of experience and breadth of knowledge to assist in any significant dispute, having served as counsel in high-stakes, complex cases for some of the world’s most recognizable companies. We focus on meeting our clients’ goals, whether litigating a matter through trial and appeal or negotiating a business resolution. We understand our clients’ immediate and long-term needs and consistently deliver successful results.
In an increasingly volatile world, our understanding of the different legal and political landscapes in which our clients operate drives our approach to dispute resolution. We provide our clients with sophisticated risk-management counsel, and trial-tested teams with a track record of success, who are ready to litigate aggressively to defend our clients’ interests at all costs.
A&O Shearman has experience in a wide range of substantive areas including:
Securities Litigation:
Our securities litigation practice is a core component of our market-leading litigation group. With a deep bench of attorneys focusing on this area of law, we are ready to handle any securities dispute. Through years of success, we have become the go-to counsel for numerous public companies and financial institutions, as well as their officers and directors. We recognize that every securities matter is also a business matter. Each case can potentially pose a significant threat, and – if not handled with the appropriate care and sensitivity – can cause major reputational and financial risks.
White Collar Defense and Global Investigations:
Our preeminent white-collar defense and global investigations practice takes a holistic, coordinated approach to navigating our clients through criminal, regulatory and internal investigations. We have both local depth and global reach, and the majority of our work is cross-border. We bring a deep understanding of the laws of different jurisdictions and investigation practices across the globe, bolstered by the experience and insights from the more than 20 former prosecutors and regulators on our team.
Antitrust Litigation:
Our global antitrust team advises corporates, private equity and financial institutions on their most significant transactions, investigations, and litigation. The breadth and scale of our U.S., U.K., and EU practice together with our global network and industry knowledge makes us uniquely placed to advise on complex multijurisdictional matters involving parallel proceedings and inter-agency co-operation.
M&A Litigation:
We have unparalleled expertise in representing major international companies, investment banks, private equity firms, boards of directors, special committees, and other parties involved in high-stakes transactional litigation. We advise on all aspects of M&A disputes, from pre-deal due diligence, risk assessment and mitigation to post-closing claims and remedies, and shareholder disputes. Our deep expertise in M&A litigation across the globe, including in the Delaware Court of Chancery and state and federal courts across the U.S., distinguishes us in the market.
Complex Commercial Litigation:
We have represented corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, and other entities in a variety of business-related disputes relating to breach of contract, fraud, professional malpractice, business torts, and insurance and reinsurance matters.
Intellectual Property Litigation:
We represent the world’s leading businesses, helping them to invest in and protect their critical intellectual property as well as defending them when plaintiffs allege that they have violated intellectual property rights. Whether developing, acquiring, registering, licensing, or enforcing IP rights – or defending against alleged IP violations – we help our clients to navigate the legal and commercial challenges they face globally.
Employment Litigation:
We handle disputes arising from terminations, team moves, whistleblowing, and trade-restraint matters, as well as allegations of misconduct, discrimination and harassment. We have a track record of delivering successful outcomes whether via obtaining or defending injunctions, resolving claims through mediation or arbitration, or litigating in court or before employment tribunals.
Cybersecurity:
We help multinational organizations identify, mitigate, and manage cyber threats. We work with our clients to build their operational resilience and cyber-readiness with robust, tailored compliance programs and governance processes, which address both their own risks and those posed by their supply chain partners.
Arbitration:
We have decades of experience advising and representing clients in complex cross-border commercial arbitrations and investor-state disputes under the rules of all the leading institutions. We are known for our skill in arbitration-related court proceedings - including multijurisdictional enforcement strategies - ensuring we can take cases from inception to their ultimate conclusion. We also regularly advise on complex issues of public international law.
Updated July 2024