Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

Firm Management: David Efron (co-managing partner), Marc Elovitz (co-managing partner), Stephanie Breslow, Josh Dambacher, Eleazer Klein, Julian Wise, Boris Ziser, Michael Barton (CFO), Brian Schare (COO)

Number of partners: 108

Number of other lawyers: 289

Firm Overview:

With a firm focus on private capital, Schulte Roth & Zabel comprises legal advisers and commercial problem-solvers who combine exceptional experience, industry insight, integrated intelligence and commercial creativity to help clients raise and invest assets and protect and expand their businesses. From the largest activist proxy fight in history to crypto fund formation, we’ve worked closely with our clients and colleagues to make a legal, commercial and societal impact.

We have offices in New York, Washington, DC, and London, and advise private capital clients on investment management, corporate, transactional and litigation matters, and provide counsel on securities regulatory compliance, enforcement and investigative issues.

Main Areas of Practice:

Bank Regulatory:

Schulte’s Bank Regulatory Group helps clients create value at the complex intersection of financial services and private capital.

We provide guidance and advice to both private funds and financial institutions in various capacities. This includes assisting financial institutions in establishing or investing in private funds, as well as helping private funds with their investments in financial institutions. Our private capital experience gives us a deep understanding of fund and deal structures and their upstream and investor-side implications that is critical for these transactions.

Broker-Dealer Regulatory & Enforcement:

Schulte’s Broker-Dealer Regulatory and Enforcement Group advises some of the securities market’s leading broker-dealers, helping them navigate SEC, FINRA, exchange and state securities law compliance requirements and enforcement actions. Few firms can offer a practice with the size and depth of experience as our Broker-Dealer Regulatory and Enforcement Group.

Business Reorganization:

Schulte’s Business Reorganization Group has a leading practice representing key players in some of the most significant bankruptcy and restructuring deals in the industry. Our lawyers provide critical counsel to domestic, foreign and international secured creditors, unsecured creditors, debtor-in-possession lenders, acquirers, equity holders, plan sponsors and others in Chapter 11 reorganizations and out-of-court workouts, and they regularly advise on acquisitions and divestitures of troubled companies and their assets.

Employment & Employee Benefits:

Schulte’s Employment and Employee Benefits Group provides comprehensive guidance to a wide range of clients regarding the entire employment relationship. We work with clients on all employment and employee benefit issues in the workplace, with particular experience advising on and litigating non-compete provisions and other restrictive covenants, employee benefit litigation and partnership issues.

Environmental:

The heightened focus on climate change and environmental liability by regulators and financing sources and the increased threat of related statutory and common law liability have made accurate assessment of environmental factors a potentially critical component of many transactions. Schulte’s Environmental Group works with the firm’s M&A, Finance and Business Reorganization groups to identify and evaluate environmental risks and limit our clients’ exposure.

Finance:

Schulte has one of the most sophisticated and wide-ranging finance groups of any firm, specializing in direct lending and other private credit transactions, leveraged finance, structured and esoteric/specialty finance, investment fund finance, litigation finance and CLOs. The hallmark of our finance practice is the combination of our breadth and depth of experience, which allows us to serve clients across the full spectrum of debt financing transactions available in today’s ever-changing market.

Individual Client Services:

Schulte’s Individual Client Services Group is one of the most sophisticated, extensive and diverse of any major law firm. We support clients through every phase of their lives, from inheritance and marriage to the administration of estates and trusts.

Our work is built around our clients and their goals. We help them navigate tax-efficient strategies and complex family dynamics to ensure that their estate planning is an active tool to build the lives they want to lead — and the legacy they want to leave behind.

Intellectual Property, Sourcing & Technology:

Schulte brings its commercial orientation and private capital focus to help clients manage, safeguard and leverage intellectual property assets, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, unfair competition and trade secrets, portfolio monetization and information technology licensing, development and outsourcing. They have an established track record of aggressively protecting the IP rights of their clients against infringement by competitors.

 

Investment Management:

Schulte’s core client base is investment fund managers who invest private capital. With a great depth of practice, Schulte provides across-the-board expertise. Their clients are among the best and brightest investors in the alternative investment fund industry. The firm advises on the formation and operation of a wide array of funds with varying investment strategies, including hedge funds, private equity funds, credit funds, distressed funds, real estate funds, activist funds, hybrid funds, blockchain technology, digital assets and litigation finance, among others. They are experienced in every legal and regulatory aspect of the alternative investment management business.

Litigation:

Schulte’s litigation group has premier capabilities in both complex commercial litigation and the specialized areas of securities enforcement, white collar criminal defense and investigations and prosecutions (AML, OFAC and FCPA matters). They represent more than half of the world’s hundred largest hedge funds, as well as hundreds of private equity firms, broker-dealers and investment managers. Clients benefit from the firm’s’ extensive trial experience and proven track record of success in complex civil and criminal matters, as well as its negotiation and dispute resolution expertise.

Mergers & Acquisitions:

Schulte regularly advises on M&A deals worth billions of dollars and has experience working with some of the most talented foreign law firms in the world on cross-border deals. Schulte works on public and private transactions, proxy contests, spin-offs and joint ventures, regularly tackling some of the most complicated deals for many of the world’s largest private equity funds.

Real Estate:

Schulte is acclaimed as a leading US real estate law firm by various publications, with its lawyers frequently ranked as top practitioners by peers. The firm's Real Estate Group annually completes billions in real estate transactions, handling complex transactions, including acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, development, construction lending, financing, mezzanine lending, workouts, restructurings and commercial lending. They advise on both public and private REITs and other capital structures to enhance returns on real estate investments.

Regulatory & Compliance:

Schulte’s market-leading regulatory and compliance team advises a client base consisting of more than 300 financial services firms, including investment banks, commercial banks, hedge funds, private equity funds, mutual funds, closed-end funds, business development companies and employee benefit plans. The firm’s regulatory & compliance practice consists of more than 50 lawyers, including over 30 partners, all with extensive regulatory and compliance experience, including many with prior experience working at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or in US Attorneys’ offices.

Securities & Capital Markets:

Schulte offers transactional and ongoing regulatory and compliance advice to both US and international participants, including issuers, investors, and banks of various sizes and stages, across all major industries involved in US and global capital markets transactions. This includes SEC-registered offerings, as well as those under Regulation D, Rule 144A, and Regulation S. Their securities litigation practice has a strong history of defending private funds against securities claims and class actions, and they represent directors on public company boards.

Shareholder Activism:

Schulte’s Shareholder Activism Group has successfully handled some of the highest-profile and most complex campaigns in the history of investor engagement. The group takes a holistic approach to counseling clients on every phase of engagements with public companies and their leadership teams. They advise both seasoned and occasional activist shareholders on evaluating investment opportunities, deploying capital, executing investments, crafting business proposals, negotiating settlements, conducting proxy contests, employing alternative activism strategies, and navigating hostile takeovers and contested M&A transactions.

Tax:

Schulte’s Tax Group assists private capital clients in managing a wide array of specialized and interlocking tax considerations at every stage. From fund formation to deployment and exit, including transactions, financings and other pertinent matters, the firm leverages their comprehensive understanding of fund structures to create solutions that align with both innovative investment strategies and the diverse tax compliance needs of various investors.