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Key practice areas
Intellectual property
Trade mark
Patent
Labor and employment
Dispute resolution
Firm overview

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP provides the highest quality legal advice and representation to clients around the world. The results the firm achieves have set it apart for more than 140 years and have become a model for the modern practice of law. Today, S&C is a leader in each of its core practice areas and in each of its geographic markets. The firm advises a diverse range of clients on major domestic and cross-border M&A and corporate finance transactions, high-stakes litigation and corporate investigations and complex regulatory, tax and estate planning matters. Headquartered in New York, S&C comprises more than 875 lawyers who serve clients around the world through a network of 13 offices, located in leading financial centers in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States.


Main Areas of Practice:

Antitrust: Sullivan & Cromwell represents clients across a broad array of industries and in multiple jurisdictions in merger clearances, criminal antitrust investigations and civil litigation. The firm handles merger clearances for some of the largest and most complex M&A transactions in the world. 


Capital Markets:
S&C leads global rankings in both volume and value of offerings and on its ability to structure novel and effective transactions in the representation of issuers, underwriters, selling and controlling shareholders, and other market participants globally.


Corporate Governance:
S&C’s corporate governance practice draws from across the firm’s preeminent practice areas for a thorough understanding of evolving corporate governance requirements and practices. 


Estates & Personal:
S&C provides comprehensive and customized service to individuals, families, trustees and charitable institutions on a range of sensitive business and personal affairs. The practice includes all aspects of non-US and US transactional matters, and cross-border trusts and estates litigation.


Executive Compensation/ERISA:
S&C advises on a full range of corporate, securities, tax and employment law matters. The firm’s lawyers represent many of the largest global companies on employment arrangements, corporate governance, succession matters and incentive compensation plan design, as well as senior executives in negotiations.


Financial Services:
S&C remains the leading global law firm on transactional, regulatory, enforcement and other matters affecting financial institutions. The firm’s expertise extends to clients in the banking; broker-dealer; commodities; futures and derivatives; insurance; and investment management sectors. 


Intellectual Property & Technology:
S&C assists clients globally with the full spectrum of intellectual property and technology issues, including in significant M&A transactions, complex patent and other IP disputes, as well as in licensing matters.


Investment Management:
S&C combines a traditional investment management and an alternative investment management practice to provide expertise in transactional, structuring, trading, advisory and regulatory matters. 


Litigation:
S&C’s litigators take a global, multidisciplinary approach to every aspect of litigation and regulatory matters, making it the go-to firm for cross-border litigation, a practice strengthened by S&C’s stellar reputation as a corporate, financial and transactional firm.


Mergers & Acquisitions:
S&C mobilizes teams of lawyers worldwide for clients
on their largest and most important domestic and cross-border M&A transactions.
A perennial leader in M&A, S&C ranks first by value among law firms over the last 20 years, having acted in over $9 trillion in announced transactions worldwide.


Private Equity:
S&C’s private equity practice draws upon the integrated resources and efforts of S&C offices around the world, taking advantage of the firm’s preeminent global capabilities to advise private equity firms, family offices, sovereign wealth funds and other investors of private capital on their most important and complex acquisitions, strategic investments and exits, across a broad range of industries.


Project Development & Finance; Infrastructure:
S&C is a leader in project and infrastructure development and finance. The firm has advised on many of the most transformative and complex projects and financings in both developed and emerging markets, including advising clients in joint venture arrangements, M&A, restructurings and public-private partnerships.


Real Estate:
S&C’s real estate group combines public/private market expertise and innovative deal-making skills to assist clients in purchasing, selling, developing and financing real estate companies and assets worldwide, and represents clients in restructuring real estate and other assets to facilitate generational transition and/or resolve disputes. 


Restructuring & Bankruptcy:
S&C is unique in its ability to handle all elements of a corporate restructuring—whether or not an insolvency proceeding is used as a tool.


Tax:
S&C’s tax group has a global reputation for innovative tax planning, the successful resolution of tax controversies and providing pivotal tax advice on corporate transactions.


Updated September 2024

Address:
125 Broad Street
New York, NY 10004
Tel:+1 212 558 4000 Fax:+1 212 558 3588 Web Address:http://www.sullcrom.com
Rankings published in 2025
Dispute resolution
Highly Recommended
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Linked Reviews
Dispute Resolution

Sullivan & Cromwell boasts a pedigree as one of the most revered legal brands on the global stage. A towering full-service firm, with concentration on the East and West Coasts through its offices in New York, Washington DC and two offices in California – Palo Alto and Los Angeles. While its offerings extend beyond litigation, Sullivan & Cromwell’s dispute-resolution depth and acuity is called into service by some of the firm’s biggest blue-chip clients. “When people talk about law firms to someone who’s not a lawyer, often they will just randomly throw out ‘Sullivan & Cromwell’ as an example because the name carries that much weight, like Coca-Cola or Apple,” marvels one peer. “We should all be so lucky.” Speaking to the firm’s A-list client base, another peer quips, “Goldman Sachs has them on speed-dial. S&C has that premium work on lockdown.”
        The firm has made a substantial play in the bankruptcy sphere as of late, which was on full display two years ago with a firm team including James Bromley and Jacob Croke leading efforts at FTX, as Chapter 11 debtor, to investigate the events that led to the company’s embattled crypto entity’s collapse, assist government authorities in their probes and organize hundreds of potential litigations to recover assets. To date, the firm team has helped identify and recover $7.4 billion in liquid assets for FTX and has identified other potential claims that FTX could bring. This appointment is remarkable not only due to the highly scrutinized nature of the client and the claims involved, but also more generally due to the firm’s pronounced elevation in the bankruptcy practice. “Ten years ago, even five years ago, Sullivan & Cromwell was not known for bankruptcy, and they didn’t seem like they wanted to be,” asserts a peer, “but wow, now they are on the bankruptcy map in a big way. After that, I expect there will be more [work for the firm.]”
     In the securities capacity, New York’s Robert Giuffra scored for Ericsson in a putative securities class action in which the lead plaintiff alleged that the telecom entity and certain of its directors made false or misleading statements by failing to disclose an internal investigation in which the DoJ found that Ericsson had breached a 2019 deferred-prosecution agreement related to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in six countries. When the media reported on this internal report in February 2022, Ericsson’s market cap plunged by billions of dollars, whereupon the plaintiffs brought suit. In a decision issued in May 2023, the Eastern District of New York concluded that Ericsson did not violate any disclosure obligation to investors. An appeal followed, and in September 2024, the Second Circuit affirmed the case’s dismissal. “Bob Giuffra is high-energy and fast, but savvy” observes a peer. “He knows when to try a case and he also knows how and when to pull back. I’ve seen judges get stunned by his courtroom abilities – like, who has this much stamina? So you almost get thrown off guard when you see how measured and reasonable he is. Maybe it’s a tactic – if so, it works.” Sharon Nelles, another New York all-purpose luminary, represented a majority shareholder entity in Rocket Companies and certain officers and directors in obtaining a victory on price impact in the Sixth Circuit in October 2024 when after the court denied class certification in a securities fraud and insider- trading action. Nelles and DC-based appellate specialist Jeffrey Wall acted for eBay, against whom the DoJ filed an action on behalf of the EPA arguing that in recent years there were sales on eBay of aftermarket emission-defeat devices in violation of the Clean Air Act; pesticides in violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; and products containing methylene chloride in violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act.  eBay disputed the claims, noting that in all three of those statutes, Congress imposed liability on sellers. In September 2024, the Eastern District of New York dismissed the suit in its entirety. “It’s hard going against Sharon,” confides a peer, “but that’s because she’s so tough! She’s a fantastic lawyer.” Steve Peikin, a New York-based securities and white-collar star, is touted by a peer as “very accomplished, and someone who should become one of the leaders of that firm.” Another peer makes mention of the firm’s labor and employment practice, particularly Ann-Elizabeth Ostrager, who “has been impressive in growing that department, which deserves more recognition.”

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Sullivan & Cromwell's Top 100 Trial Lawyer star speaks to Benchmark editor Michael Rafalowich
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