Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates
Headquarters	New York, N.Y.
No. of offices	23
No. of attorneys	1,886 [1]
No. of employees	4,500 (estimate)
Major practice areas	Mergers and acquisitions, litigation and arbitration, corporate finance, corporate restructuring, securities law, banking, project finance, energy and infrastructure, antitrust, tax and intellectual property, among others[2]
Revenue	US$ 2.1 billion (2009)[3]
Date founded	April 1, 1948
Founder	Marshall Skadden, John Slate, and Les Arps
Company type	Limited liability partnership
Website
www.skadden.com

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates (often shortened to Skadden Arps, Skadden, or SASM&F), founded in 1948, is a prominent law firm based in New York City. With nearly 2,000 attorneys, it is one of the largest, most prestigious, and highest-grossing law firms in the world.^[4] Forbes magazine calls Skadden "Wall Street's most powerful law firm".^[5] In most jurisdictions, the firm is organized as a limited liability partnership (LLP). The firm's best-known alumni include former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer,^[6] and comedian Greg Giraldo.

Contents 1 Size 1.1 Ranking among law firms by revenue 1.2 Ranking among law firms by number of attorneys 1.3 Ranking among all private U.S. companies by revenue 2 Reputation 3 Layoffs, Deferrals, and Skadden "Sidebar" and "Sidebar Plus" 4 Key people 5 History 6 Locations 7 Skadden Fellowship Foundation 8 Notable alumni 9 Political contributions 10 Controversy 11 Further reading 12 References 13 External links

Size

Ranking among law firms by revenue

With US$2.2 billion in annual revenue, Skadden is the largest law firm in the U.S. in revenue.^[7][4] The firm has held this position for ten years running and in 1999 became the first law firm to exceed US$1 billion in annual revenue. Its revenue also makes Skadden the third largest law firm in the world, behind two U.K. firms.^[4]

Ranking among law firms by number of attorneys

Skadden has about 1,886 ^[8] attorneys in 23 offices.^[9] The total number of employees is nearly 4,200. In number of attorneys, Skadden is the second-largest law firm in the state of New York, the sixth largest in the United States, ^[8] and the tenth largest in the world.

In 2010, the National Law Journal ranked Skadden 6th in its list of the 250 largest law firms in the United States.

Despite its size, Skadden has been distinguished by its refusal to expand by mergers with other law firms or large acquisitions of practice groups. The firm has never acquired a practice group larger than six attorneys, in sharp contrast with rivals such as Baker & McKenzie, which has repeatedly absorbed local practices, or DLA Piper and Clifford Chance, which are the products of large mergers (often across national and continental borders). This consistent approach to the selection and training of its attorneys has helped Skadden to avoid the charges of varying quality across offices often faced by comparably-sized firms.[citation?]

Ranking among all private U.S. companies by revenue

In 1995, Forbes Largest Private Companies ranked Skadden as 335th^[10] largest all private U.S. companies by revenue, by 2003 Skadden had risen to 194th^[11] before falling back to 213th^[12] in 2010.

Reputation

Among Skadden's main practice areas are mergers and acquisitions (M&A), litigation, securities law, taxation, and bankruptcy representation. The firm has counted a majority of the Fortune 500's top 50 companies as clients. Skadden has been selected for each of the past six years as the best corporate law firm in the U.S. according to a survey of 1,390 directors and 279 general counsel of publicly traded companies by Corporate Board Member magazine and FTI Consulting.^[13]

Although called a sweatshop by some,^[14] Skadden is also known for its generous attorney compensation. Like other top national firms, it pays its first-year associates $160,000. This does not include the annual discretionary bonus.^[15]

Layoffs, Deferrals, and Skadden "Sidebar" and "Sidebar Plus"

Skadden has engaged in several rounds of layoffs, affecting staff attorneys and support staff.^[16][17] There is no evidence that Skadden has laid off any associate attorneys. But in March 2009, it instituted a "Sidebar Plus" program. The "Sidebar" program at Skadden has been in existence for a number of years and permits attorneys to take up to two years off to pursue personal interests. The "Sidebar" program, in contrast to the "Sidebar Plus" program, does not typically give participants any benefits other than a guaranteed job offer. Under the "Sidebar Plus" program, associates may leave the firm for up to a year to pursue public interest or other opportunities and receive one-third of their base salary, student loan payments, and reimbursement of COBRA payments during this time. Incoming associates of the Class of 2009 may also participate in the program and defer their start dates until 2010.^[18] The program is currently voluntary. It has been praised as an innovative and creative response to the recession by some while others express skepticism and question whether the firm is going to welcome these associates back.^[19][20] The Summer Class of 2009 will not be starting as full-time attorneys in 2010. It has been deferred until 2011.

Key people

As of February 2011, there are 432 partners at Skadden.^[21] Unlike some firms which have introduced two-tier partnerships with equity and non-equity partners, Skadden maintains a one-tier partnership, in which all partners are equity partners and share ownership of the firm.^[22] Among the more notable partners are:

• Greg Craig, former White House Counsel to President Obama, heads the firm's global policy and litigation strategy group.
• Judith Kaye, former Chief Judge of the State of New York, is of counsel, and in March 2010 was tapped to lead the investigation of New York Governor David Patterson.
• Bruce Buck, chairman of Chelsea Football Club, partner in charge of firm's European offices.^[23]

History

• 1948 — The firm was founded in New York by Marshall Skadden, John Slate and Les Arps.
• 1954 — Joseph Flom became a partner.
• 1959 — Bill Meagher (pronounced "mar", not "mee-gur") joined the firm. Elizabeth Head, the firm's first female attorney, was hired.
• 1961 — The firm's name became Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
• 1973 — The firm opened its Boston office, the firm's second.
• 1981 — Peggy Kerr became the first female partner.
• 1985 — Skadden became one of the U.S.'s three largest law firms.
• 1987 — The firm opened its first international office in Tokyo.
• 1988 — The firm founded the Skadden Fellowship Foundation.
• 2000 — New York City headquarters moved to Four Times Square, also called the Condé Nast Building.
• 2011 — Joseph Flom, the last living name partner dies.

Locations

Skadden has 23 offices world wide. It has eight offices in the United States of America including the headquarters in New York, one in Toronto, Canada and one in São Paulo, Brazil. Outside the Americas, Skadden has seven offices in Europe, five in Asia and one in Sydney, Australia.^[22]

Skadden Fellowship Foundation

Through the Skadden Fellowship Foundation, the firm sponsors law school graduates who wish to practice public interest law. The foundation was established in 1988 at the time of the firm's 40th anniversary. The Los Angeles Times has called the program "a legal Peace Corps."^[24] Fellows work with a sponsoring organization in the field of providing legal services to the poor, the elderly, the homeless, the disabled, and the disenfranchised. Skadden pays fellows a salary of $46,000 (as of 2006), plus all fringe benefits the sponsoring organization offers its employees. As of 2006, the firm has awarded 473 fellowships.^[24]

Notable alumni

In addition to numerous professors and partners, both at Skadden and other firms, some of the more notable former Skadden attorneys include:

• Cyrus Amir-Mokri, current Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions of the U.S. Treasury Department.
• Preeta D. Bansal, former General Counsel for the federal Office of Management and Budget; former Solicitor General of the State of New York
• George B. Daniels, judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (2000–)
• Mark Filip, former Acting Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States; former judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
• Greg Giraldo,^[25] international comedian
• Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York,^[6] and his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer^[26]
• Leo Strine, Chancellor (2011–) and former Vice-Chancellor (1998–2011), Delaware Court of Chancery
• Laura Ingraham, conservative talk radio host
• Chad S. Johnson, former President of the Stonewall Democrats
• Faryar Shirzad, Managing Director and Global Head of Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs^[27]
• Keith Gottfried, General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2005–)
• John Feerick, former Dean of Fordham University School of Law
• Robert Del Tufo, former New Jersey Attorney General
• Douglas Rediker, U.S. Alternate Executive Director, International Monetary Fund (2010–)
• Mary L. Smith, current official, United States Department of Justice Civil Division; former nominee, Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice Tax Division
• Robert W. Sweet, judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (1978–, senior status 1991–)
• William H. Timbers, former judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1971–1981, senior status 1981–1994); Chief Judge (1964–1971), judge (1960–1971), United States District Court for the District of Connecticut

Political contributions

Skadden partners and employees tend to support and contribute more to Democratic political candidates than to Republicans.^[28]

Prominent lawyers at the firm endorsed and financially supported John Kerry in his campaign to become president of the United States in 2004.^[29][30]

In the run-up to Super Tuesday, 2008, Skadden hosted a phone bank in support of Barack Obama.^[31][32]

• Thomson Financial League Tables

Controversy

The Skadden Insider was a fairly innocuous blog, with few posts and little revelation. The blog is purportedly operated by two associates of the firm, as yet anonymous. The Skadden Insider was little known until the operators decided to conduct a poll to crown the hottest female associate, with the hottest male associates, female partners, male partners, and summer associates to be selected in subsequent months. The blog's contest became very public after a memo to all of Skadden's U.S. attorneys from firm of counsel and employment advisor Hank Baer was leaked to the media.^{[33][34][35][36]} In the memo, Baer chastised the "insiders" for not upholding the firm's values and professionalism.

Further reading

• Caplan, Lincoln (1993). Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN 0-374-26566-6. 
• "How Skadden Does It", Andrew Longstreth, The American Lawyer, May 2006.

References

External links

• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates Web Site
• Skadden Fellowship Foundation
• See this firm's profile on Martindale.com
• Martindale.com augmented information with third-party sourced data to present a more comprehensive overview of the firm's expertise
• LawPeriscope Profile
• Hoover's Profile
• Vault Profile
• Yahoo! Finance Profile
• The Legal 500 US Rankings
• Skadden Insider blog