The Legal 500

Within Corporate restructuring, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a third tier firm,

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP’s national restructuring practice group numbers some 40 attorneys across the United States with the core of the key team dealing with the firm’s strong creditor-side workflow based in New York. Although best known for creditor-side instructions, the firm does accept debtor-side instructions and has handled some significant representations including Hawaiian Airlines, and Scott Cable Communications. In the current economic climate, the firm’s expertise in distressed real estate secured lending should be noted. Daniel Golden in New York heads ‘a fine practice’ and has a very substantial creditors’ committee and bondholder practice although he has also represented the debtor in significant bankruptcies. Also in New York, Fred Hodara has considerable experience of, and expertise in, the representation of lenders to financial sector businesses where a knowledge of regulation and understanding of complex financial products is essential. Hodara is representing the official committee of Washington Mutual, and also advised in the liquidation of two Bear Stearns sub-prime hedge funds. In the same office Stephen Kuhn, who has a practice with a similar bias towards creditor representation but also handles asset sales for companies in Chapter 11, ‘impressed us with his sound judgment – an excellent lawyer and advisor’. Abid Qureshi, in New York, who is also qualified in Canada and the UK, ranks as one of the firm’s ‘impressive younger partners’, and has represented numerous creditors’ committees including the official unsecured creditors committee in the Nortel Networks bankruptcy. The practice group was strengthened in December 2009 by the appointment of Sarah Schultz as partner in the Dallas office.

Within Alternative/hedge funds, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a second tier firm,

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP has ‘a very good hedge funds practice with long experience in the industry’. The nexus of the practice is in New York, where 15 partners make investment funds their focus. However, investment management partners also reside in the firm’s Texas, Los Angeles and Washington DC offices, providing a national network that is supplemented by an international presence in London, Moscow and Abu Dhabi. The hedge funds team ranks highly for volume of funds formed, albeit falling shy of the market leaders. Clients note that ‘while the practice is great, it hasn’t grown out under the top partners as much as some others’. That said, its support groups are frequently commended, particularly the ‘amazing hedge fund tax practice under Stuard Leblang ’ in New York. The practice’s client roster contains a fair proportion of top hedge funds; those who instruct the practice regularly include Soros Fund Management, FRM, AIG, Carlyle, Oak Hill Investment and Warburg Pincus. Practice leader and ‘all-round great lawyer’ Stephen Vine works out of New York. Vine is praised as ‘a founder of the hedge fund industry’ who ‘deserves his pre-eminent reputation’.

Within Appellate, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a third tier firm,

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP’s widespread appellate and Supreme Court practice fields lawyers in several major cities. In the Supreme Court term beginning October 2008, the practice argued for Carlos Jimenez in a habeas case concerning statute-of-limitations issues relating to the client’s lengthy appeal process against a jail sentence. In Virginia v Moore, the team won for David Lee Moore in an esoteric case concerning the constitutionality of the means of seizure of cocaine from the client. The group’s co-chair, Thomas Goldstein is a media-friendly up-and-comer, admired for his talents as a lawyer in addition to his lecturing posts and popular SCOTUS Supreme Court blog.

Within International trade , Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a second tier firm,

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP’s international trade powerhouse has a ‘stellar reputation for its high standard of work, professionalism of its attorneys and success rate’. The group attracts foreign and domestic clients on a wide range of matters, ranging from antidumping and countervailing duty litigation, to customs laws, export controls and economic sanctions to WTO disputes resolutions and trade policy. Based in Washington DC, the team also has vast expertise in representing clients on all aspects of the national security reviews of foreign acquisitions of US companies conducted by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). In antidumping and countervailing duty litigation, the group has advised foreign and domestic companies in more than 100 duty proceedings, by prosecuting and defending against these cases, and in minimazing liability. Clients of the firm include Georgia Pacific, Samsung Electronics, Posco, Bridgestone Firestone North Americ, Fujitsu and Hansol Paper. Heading the practice, Valerie Slater acts for clients in proceedings before the US Department of Commerce, the US International Trade Commission and the Office of the US Trade Representative, and has considerable expertise with antidumping and countervailing duty cases. Warren Connelly, Spencer Griffith and J David Park are also busy practitioners in the international trade arena.

Within Supreme Court, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a third tier firm,

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP’s widespread appellate and Supreme Court practice fields lawyers in several major cities. In the Supreme Court term beginning October 2008, the practice argued for Carlos Jimenez in a habeas case concerning statute-of-limitations issues relating to the client’s lengthy appeal process against a jail sentence. In Virginia v Moore, the team won for David Lee Moore in an esoteric case concerning the constitutionality of the means of seizure of cocaine from the client. The group’s co-chair, Thomas Goldstein is a media-friendly up-and-comer, admired for his talents as a lawyer in addition to his lecturing posts and popular SCOTUS Supreme Court blog.

Within M&A: middle-market ($500m-999m), Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a second tier firm,

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP’s strong presence in the private equity market contributes to its significant experience in providing representation in hundreds of private M&A transactions in the US and globally, with its M&A attorneys working closely with those in the firm’s corporate finance and securities practice, as well as with tax, antitrust, employment and public law colleagues. The firm remains extremely industry-focused, its key M&A sectors comprising consumer business, energy, entertainment and media, American Indian gaming and health care. The Washington DC and New York offices garner particular praise from clients, with Washington DC-based Sandra Hallmark said to ‘run a tight ship that pays attention to the details and involves the right people on an as-needed basis’. Hallmark’s transactional practice includes serving as counsel to numerous public companies in acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures involving strategic assets and several public companies in the timber and paper products industry in the sale of timberlands, including transactions involving instalment sales. In New York, co-corporate head Kerry Berchem served as counsel to a publicly traded insurance company in connection with a $3bn merger, including responding to a competing tender offer and proxy contest, and also acted for a special committee of the board of directors of a household appliance company in connection with a $915m equity issuance to a majority stockholder, the funds of which were used by the company to fund a strategic acquisition. The firm represented the Mubadala Development in its purchase of a minority stake in The Carlyle Group. The practice suffered a major blow when its ex-global transactions practice head and energy specialist Michael Dillard departed for Latham & Watkins LLP.