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Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

8 offices

The traits that fueled Skadden’s rise from a New York startup to a global powerhouse - collaborative, innovative, persistent - continue to define our firm culture. We remain intensely focused on the simple formula of developing an inclusive complement of extraordinary attorneys, working together as a team to deliver the highest quality legal work.

The collective experience and knowledge of more than 1,700 lawyers in 22 offices across 50-plus disciplines position Skadden to deliver on our commitment to excellence in legal and client services.

Firm History

Founded by Marshall Skadden, Les Arps and John Slate on April Fools’ Day in 1948, Skadden began as a scrappy upstart among a sea of established “white shoe” law firms in New York. Joe Flom was hired as the firm’s first associate later that year, and litigator Bill Meagher, the fifth partner to lend his name to the firm’s letterhead as it appears today, joined in 1959.

Our first two decades were marked by slow and steady growth of our client base as we set out to establish ourselves as the go-to firm for our clients’ most complex legal problems. Our willingness to handle proxy fights in the 1950s and early 1960s - matters deemed “ungentlemanly” by white shoe firms - positioned us to ultimately become the firm of choice for the hostile takeovers that dominated the M&A landscape beginning in the 1970s.

Recognizing the value of providing full-service advice to clients, from day one we sought to develop a range of complementary practices, like litigation, tax and antitrust. Client needs led us to open offices in other cities beginning in 1973, and the volume of work we were handling fueled exponential growth in the number of attorneys at the firm in the 1980s. That growth included a significant expansion of the practices we offered to clients, including restructuring, finance, real estate, mass torts and securities litigation, as well as the opening of offices in Europe and Asia.

In the decades since, we’ve built on that platform to provide advice to clients around the world on their most important matters. Our core values reflect the ideals of our history, and we remain committed to providing excellent lawyering and unrivaled client service in all our work, as captured in a letter from our longest-tenured partner, Peter Atkins.

Firm Information

Founded

1948

Team Size

1700 people

Offices

8 locations

Contact us

Our Offices

Find our offices across different locations to serve you better.

Boston

United States

500 Boylston Street Boston, Massachusetts 02116

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Tax Increment Financing

Financial Services Regulation

Government Relations & Lobbying

+46 more

Chicago

United States

155 N. Wacker Drive Chicago, Illinois 60606

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Tax Increment Financing

Financial Services Regulation

Government Relations & Lobbying

+46 more

Houston

United States

1000 Louisiana Street Suite 6800 Houston, Texas 77002

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Tax Increment Financing

Financial Services Regulation

Government Relations & Lobbying

+46 more

Los Angeles

United States

300 South Grand Avenue Suite 3400 Los Angeles, California 90071

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Tax Increment Financing

Financial Services Regulation

Government Relations & Lobbying

+46 more

New York

United States

One Manhattan West New York, New York 10001-8602

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Tax Increment Financing

Financial Services Regulation

Government Relations & Lobbying

+46 more

Palo Alto

United States

525 University Avenue Palo Alto, California 94301

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Tax Increment Financing

Financial Services Regulation

Government Relations & Lobbying

+46 more

Washington

United States

1440 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Commercial Real Estate

Foreclosure

Housing, Construction & Development

+46 more

Wilmington

United States

One Rodney Square 920 N. King Street Wilmington, Delaware 19801

Languages

English

Practice Areas

Business

Accounting & Auditing

Antitrust

+46 more

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