Sullivan & Cromwell
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Sullivan & Cromwell LLP is one of the most renowned and prestigious international law firms headquartered in New York. The firm has approximately 600 lawyers in 12 offices, located in leading financial centers in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States. Sullivan & Cromwell was founded by Algernon Sydney Sullivan and William Nelson Cromwell in 1879. Sullivan & Cromwell is currently ranked as the third most prestigious law firm in the United States by Vault.
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[edit] History
[edit] Founding
From its earliest involvement in the formation of Edison General Electric Company in 1882 and United States Steel Corporation in 1901, to its present work with leaders of the global economy in the 21st century, the firm has been closely involved in the affairs of some of America's, and now the world's, greatest industrial, commercial and financial enterprises. Sullivan & Cromwell's efforts to bring about the building of the Panama Canal are chronicled in David McCullough's book, The Path Between the Seas. The firm represents the Panama Canal Authority to this day.
[edit] 1929-1969
The Great Depression and its aftermath reoriented much of Wall Street, and Sullivan & Cromwell was called on to assist clients in confronting a burst of government involvement in business affairs and a new wave of business-related litigation. During this period the firm developed its expertise in defending shareholder derivative litigation and antitrust actions, and was among the first law firms to develop expertise in the field of federal income tax law. A series of new federal statutes, beginning with the Securities Act of 1933, was enacted to regulate the investment industry, and Sullivan & Cromwell prepared the first major registration statement under the Securities Act. The firm's substantial involvement in, and important contributions to, securities offerings and securities regulation have continued since that time. Sullivan & Cromwell partner Rogers Lamont was the first American to die in World War II. Lamont had worked in the firm's Berlin office in the early 1930s and had seen the horrors of Nazi Germany firsthand. Lamont resigned from the firm in 1939 and joined the British Army. Lamont was killed at Dunkirk on May 27,1940. During and after World War II individual members of the firm, including partners such as John Foster Dulles and Arthur Dean, also played important roles in domestic politics and international affairs. John Foster Dulles's younger brother Allen Welsh Dulles was a Sullivan partner for several decades interrupted by his service with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, as the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency and as a member of the Warren Commission. Sullivan & Cromwell's litigation department was led for many years by Harlan Fiske Stone, before he left the firm to become Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Partner Robert MacCrate served as Counsel to New York Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller and as Special Counsel to the Department of the Army for its investigation of the My Lai Massacre.
[edit] 1970-2007
During the past three and a half decades Sullivan & Cromwell has grown gradually in measured response to the increasing volume and complexity of their clients' affairs, developing leading practices in areas such as mergers and acquisitions, banking regulation, real estate finance, derivatives and private equity. The firm's work in cross-border capital flows has continued, including substantial involvement in foreign direct investment and project finance, the development of the Euro — and other global capital markets, and the financial flows to Asia and Latin America.
As the expansion of the scope and nature of the firm's practice required Sullivan & Cromwell to have lawyers in locations more convenient to clients. Building on the legacy of John Foster Dulles and Arthur Dean, the S&C chairmen during this period, John Stevenson, John Merow and Ricardo Mestres, all aggressively expanded the firm's practice in the United States and around the world. Domestic branches were opened in Washington, D.C. in 1977, Los Angeles in 1984 and Palo Alto in 2000. Overseas, the Paris office, closed during World War II, was reopened in 1962, and offices were opened in London in 1972, Melbourne in 1983, Tokyo in 1987, Hong Kong in 1992, Frankfurt in 1995, Beijing in 1999 and Sydney in 2001. Now a fixture in U.K. legal circles after for 35 years in London, Sullivan is widely regarded as a peer of the Magic Circle (law) firms.
In the late 1980s Sullivan partner Robert MacCrate served as president of both the New York State Bar Association the American Bar Association. MacCrate later chaired the ABA Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession. The Task Force's Report, widely known as the MacCrate Report[1], was issued in July 1992 and is widely viewed as template for modern legal education in the United States. MacCrate, a former S&C vice chairman, continues to be active as a Senior Counsel of the firm.
In a land deal reminiscent of Peter Stuyvesant's purchase of Manhattan Island, Sullivan & Cromwell purchased its New York headquarters building, 125 Broad Street, in 1992 for a bargain price from the building's bankrupt owner. According to the American Lawyer[2], Sullivan & Cromwell was the 10th largest law firm in the world in 2005 as measured by gross revenue, although it was second only to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in revenue per lawyer in the annual AmLaw survey. Sullivan is ranked as the 3rd most prestigious law firm by Vault.com behind Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, ahead of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Sullivan & Cromwell Chairman H. Rodgin Cohen was among the key leaders in the Wall Street community who successfully worked to provide support for small businesses in Lower Manhattan. The firm's post-9/11 efforts included assisting in the formation of Wall Street Rising.
[edit] An Early Leader in M&A
As mergers & acquisitions became an increasingly important part of the corporate landscape in the 1970s, most of the leading White shoe firms of the day would not work on hostile takeovers, leaving it to newcomers such as Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Sullivan & Cromwell was the singular exception. George Kern led the firm's m&a effort in the 1970s and 80's. Kern was a colorful figure and was widely viewed as one of the early leading m&a lawyers along with Martin Lipton and Joe Flom. As the commercial banking industry began to consolidate in the 1980s, S&C partner and current chairman Rodge Cohen became involved in most of the key deals. Joe Frumkin, lead outside counsel to AT&T and TXU, is the manging partner of an m&a department that also boasts star dealmakers Jim Morphy and Frank Aquila, along with elder statesmen Ben Stapleton and Neil Anderson. Rodge Cohen continues to be the firms leading financial institutions m&a lawyer, with banking partner Mitch Eitel working on most of the major bank combinations of the last decade. With high profile assigments from multinationals such as BP, Diageo, Philips, France Telecom, InBev, British Airways, Scottish Power, Endesa and Vodafone, Sullivan & Cromwell has carved-out an enviable niche in cross-border m&a. Partners Rich Morrissey in London and Chun Wei in Hong Kong lead the firm's non-US mergers practice.The firm has consistently ranked at top among law firms involved in worldwide M&A transactions. Globally, Sullivan & Cromwell leads the M&A league tables, ranking first by value among law firms representing principals in announced transactions in 2006 (as was also the case in 2005 and 2004), according to data from Bloomberg and Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC's Dealogic. In 2007 the firm added one of the UK's leading M&A lawyer's, Tim Emmerson, to its roster of partners. Emmerson had been a partner at Freshfields.
[edit] Awards
In 2006, Corporate Board Member Magazine named Sullivan & Cromwell one of the top corporate law firms in America, according to a survey 1,390 directors of publicly traded companies. Several of the firms partners have been awarded the prestigious Burton Award for Legal Achievement, including Ted Rogers, Frank Aquila, David Harms, Sergio Galvis and Garrad Beeney. Partner Jim Morphy was recently named as one of "The Best of the Best" in a survey by International Financial Law Review listing the best 25 M&A lawyers in the world. In January 2007, litigation partners Sharon Nelles and Rick Pepperman were named by the American Lawyer as two of "The Fab Fifty", the 50 top litigators in the United States under the age of 45.
[edit] Prominent Lawyers and Leading Practice Groups
A significant number of the firm's lawyers have received high ratings by the prestigious Chambers and Partners and more than 75 of its U.S.-based partners are listed in The Best Lawyers in America. The firm itself has received high ratings in a variety of practice areas including: Antitrust, Arbitration, Banking & Finance, Capital Markets, Litigation, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Income Tax. Among its prominent current partners are firm chairman and senior partner H. Rodgin Cohen, vice chairman and heir apparent Joseph Shenker, John Warden, Ben Stapleton, John Mead, Alison Ressler, Willard Taylor, Michael Wiseman, Sergio Galvis, Jim Morphy, Frank Aquila, Bob Giuffra, Jack Bostelman, Karen Seymour, Vince DiBlasi, Joe Frumkin, Mitch Eitel, David Braff, David Harms, Mark Welshimer, Scott Miller, Sharon Nelles and Rick Pepperman.
[edit] Associate Compensation
In January 2007, Sullivan & Cromwell increased the starting salary for a first year associate to $160,000[3], moving up to $310,000 for eighth year associates. In 2006 the firm also paid year-end bonuses to associates which ranged from $30,000 up to $70,000. In March 2007 Sullivan & Cromwell increased the bonus paid to incoming judicial clerks from $15,000 to $50,000, with Supreme Court Clerks receiving a $250,000 bonus.
[edit] Further reading
- VEP: Sullivan & Cromwell, New York: Vault, Inc., 1999
- Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell, New York: Paragon House, 1989
- Kieran Batts Morrow, Tiffany Anderson, Adrienne Carter, Tracy Richelle High, Tiffany Anderson, FAB, New York: Doubleday Publishing, 2005
