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.
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.
Skadden has worked with clients in or involved with the accounting and auditing profession for more than 25 years. We have an in depth understanding of the challenges accounting firms and individual accountants face from sea changes in the global economy and the litigation that often follows, to flashpoints in certain sectors that may adversely affect their clients. Our accounting practice has provided integrated legal services relating to litigation and investigations, regulatory and compliance issues, global and national structuring, acquisitions and divestitures, financing, tax and general commercial matters to Deloitte LLP, Ernst & Young LLP, KPMG LLP PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and RSM US LLP (former McGladrey LLP), as well as other accounting firms.
The Banking Group at Skadden represents a wide variety of clients around the globe in cutting-edge financing transactions. Our international platform, with offices in the major financial centers on four continents, allows us to advise across a broad spectrum of legal systems to the world’s largest corporations, as well as the world’s leading investment banks, commercial banks, private equity sponsors, hedge funds and other financing sources. We provide our clients sophisticated advice through a combination of experience, an in-depth understanding of the global financial markets and a market-leading ability to navigate differences in local law that can have significant impacts on financing transactions. We are frequently recognized for our work, including being named Team of the Year by The American Lawyer and Legal Week at the 2017 Transatlantic Legal Awards, and the 2016 U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Law Firm of the Year” for Banking & Finance Law.
Global businesses feel the growing impact of new competition laws and more sophisticated competition law enforcement around the world. Regardless of whether our clients’ critical competition issues concern developed or emerging jurisdictions — or several jurisdictions at once — Skadden provides timely, seamless assistance with their competition law challenges. Our Antitrust/Competition Group possesses the proven ability to pilot the most sophisticated international competition investigations, merger reviews and litigations through the complexities of this new and shifting framework. Given that today’s competition law enforcers increasingly coordinate, clients should expect the same from their counsel.
With more than 20 years of experience, Skadden’s asset management M&A team has handled transactions of all kinds involving publicly traded and privately held asset management firms.
Skadden is one of the few major law firms worldwide with a group of attorneys dedicated to transactions involving asset management, wealth management, broker-dealer and related financial services businesses.
We are conversant with the wide variety of legal, financial, tax, regulatory and commercial issues that these transactions present. As a result, we have developed considerable fluency in related disciplines — including tax, compensation and the applicable regulatory regimes — and a deep understanding of the underlying investment products.
For more than 20 years, Skadden has helped clients navigate the rapidly changing cybersecurity, privacy and technology landscapes to minimize their legal risk, as well as maximize their revenue opportunities.
Our lawyers also help clients address the complex issues at the intersection of technology, privacy, national security, intelligence and law enforcement. Based on extensive experience working with U.S. and foreign government agencies and regulators, we identify the legal risks associated with cyber- and other technology-related security concerns and assemble and coordinate multidisciplinary teams of advisers across the firm to address the universe of legal, regulatory and legislative issues faced by clients.
The breadth of our skills in cybersecurity and privacy law and the extent of our technology experience and business insights has earned the confidence of our clients to call on us both before and during a cyberattack. Skadden has been named among the top firms for cybersecurity and data privacy law issues in “BTI Law Firms Best at Cybersecurity: Corporate Counsel Rank the Law Firms Leading the Charge on Change.”
Skadden’s labor and employment practice has been recognized in the top-tier in by U.S. News — Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” 2021 and has been named as a “powerhouse” in complex employment litigation in the BTI Litigation Outlook. We represent clients across the spectrum of labor and employment litigation matters in trial and appellate courts at the federal and state level and in arbitrations and other dispute resolution proceedings, including in cases involving allegations of wrongful termination, employment discrimination and noncompetition violations. Our lawyers have a depth of experience in corporate counseling, investigations and other employment law issues that affect our clients and their employee-related policies and procedures.
With the benefit of a stand-alone labor and employment law practice, the firm advises employers on compliance issues under various labor and employment laws, helping clients conform their workplace practices and procedures to current law. Our attorneys also provide assistance on issues relating to our firm’s general corporate representations.
Our attorneys frequently speak on developing issues in labor and employment law. We also publish numerous articles and author a column that appears regularly in the New York Law Journal on labor and employment law topics.
Skadden advises clients on immigration matters and has filed visa applications on behalf of major U.S. and non-U.S. companies.
The Real Estate Group of Skadden advises clients on the full array of complex issues throughout the industry. We represent a wide variety of clients around the world, including developers, lenders, investment banks, pension funds, real estate investment trusts (REITs), private equity funds, investors and major corporations. Our representations include public and private offerings of various types of real estate securities and REITs; securitized lending transactions; leasing on behalf of landlords and tenants; real estate litigation; real estate workouts and restructurings (in and out of bankruptcy); and the development and acquisition of office buildings, hotels, casinos, resorts and shopping centers.
We are frequently recognized as a top firm in the area of real estate, including by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and U.S. News — Best Lawyers Best Law Firms in their annual listings of the leading practices. Skadden was named among the top 10 firms in the Commercial Property Executive-Multi-Housing News’ 2019 list of leading national real estate practices. Real Estate Forum named 10 matters that our group advised on among its 2017 deals of the year, and that same year, we were named Law Firm of the Year — Overall, as well as Law Firm of the Year — Financing Transactions, at the third annual Real Estate Finance & Investment Awards. Additionally, according to Dealogic, Skadden finished 2015 on top in both global and U.S. real estate deals by value, and we were named among Law360’s Real Estate Groups of 2015 and 2016.
