Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton

Firm Details

Managing Partner: Jeffrey Karpf

Number of partners worldwide: 220+

Number of lawyers worldwide: Approximately 1,200

Languages: Multilingual; the firm’s lawyers speak 60 different languages

Firm Overview:

Cleary Gottlieb is a pioneer in globalizing the legal profession. Since 1946, the firm’s lawyers and staff have worked across practices, industries, jurisdictions, and continents to provide clients with simple, actionable approaches to their most complex legal and business challenges. The firm has 14 offices in major financial centers around the world. Cleary, however, operates as a single, integrated global partnership, not a U.S. firm with a network of overseas locations. The firm is fluent in the many languages of local and global business, and Cleary’s consistent success in multiple jurisdictions continuously earns Cleary “International law Firms of the Year” awards by Chambers and Partners.

The firm employs approximately 1,200 lawyers from more than 50 countries and diverse backgrounds who are admitted to practice in numerous jurisdictions. Cleary was among the first international law firms to hire and promote non-U.S. lawyers as equal partners around the world. The firm’s international platform bolsters its inclusion and culture – something that is central to Cleary’s founding principles and ongoing identity. Cleary believes that its lawyers benefit from interacting with the creativity, talents, and perspectives of people from different backgrounds and experiences, and that its efforts to nurture perspectives from all backgrounds better serves its clients.

Cleary offers clients robust experience in more than 70 practice areas. All of Cleary’s clients enjoy access to the full resources of its offices and lawyers worldwide, and many of the firm’s attorneys have served in one or more of its offices.

Main Practice Areas:

Corporate:

Cleary Gottlieb advises clients on a broad range of transactional matters that protect and advance their strategic goals. Its lawyers have crafted solutions resulting in numerous first-of-its-kind deals, as well as some of the largest, most complex transactions involving cross-border issues. Cleary’s transactional practice spans mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures; capital markets, derivatives, structured finance, and debt finance; private equity transactions, private fund formation, privatizations, project finance, banking, bankruptcy and restructuring, real estate, energy, financial technology, infrastructure, sovereign governments, sustainability, global crisis management, international trade, and more. Additionally, the firm’s lawyers have robust knowledge of the myriad corporate governance, intellectual property, and related issues that companies and their boards face.

 

Dispute Resolution:

With the increasingly global nature of disputes, Cleary Gottlieb helps clients navigate through their most challenging adversarial issues. Cleary’s engagements frequently involve complex legal issues that require novel solutions and cross-border coordination of the firm’s varied resources, allowing Cleary to pair its renowned corporate, regulatory, and financial experience with its litigation prowess. Cleary handles litigation and arbitration involving a wide range of matters, including securities, M&A, shareholder derivative claims, general commercial disputes, intellectual property, antitrust, bankruptcy, white-collar crime, anticorruption, sovereign debt, investment treaties, and public international law.

 

Regulatory:

The global regulatory landscape is ever-changing. Cleary Gottlieb lawyers bring a wealth of experience to proactively advise clients on emerging issues and navigate increasing regulatory scrutiny. This includes matters related to transactions and potential risks that can lead to litigation or enforcement action. The firm has significant experience in such areas as antitrust, issues unique to financial institutions, cybersecurity and privacy, environmental law, foreign direct investment and sanctions, tax, and compliance. In Europe, the firm’s lawyers include former officials of the European Court of Justice, the General Court, and the European Commission. The U.S. team includes former senior officials of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Offices:

USA

New York, Bay Area, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.

EUROPE & THE MIDDLE EAST

Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Cologne, London, Milan, Paris, Rome

ASIA PACIFIC

Hong Kong, Seoul

LATIN AMERICA

São Paulo