The Bloomberg Rankings Reveal Some Major Surprises – And Lots Of Surprisingly Missing Names On The Law Firm Side Of Proxy Fights… where, it should be noted, the lawyers are often instrumental in choosing the proxy solicitor… and some old-guard leaders are currently on a lot of “no fly lists” for caving without a fight to Trump demands for cash and pro-bono work as ‘reparations.’
The top-three firms on the Activist side of proxy fights in 2025 are Olshan – with an amazing 80 fights, with $21.9b at stake; Schulte Roth & Zabel with 38 fights ($7.1b) and White & Case – up from number five last year – with 31 fights.
On the Corporate side, Sidley Austin (a firm one hardly noticed five or so years ago) led the pack with 32 fights ($2.3b) - followed by Latham & Watkins with 20 ($2.76b) and Skadden Arps with 16 ($10.2b).
The OPTIMIZER’S own brief summary of the leading law firms in dealing with Shareholder Activism should be a major wakeup call to public companies:
Many of the former lead-steers seem to have lost their mojo - and a lot of market share. Some of this is due to the many firms who have lost top leaders over the Trump efforts to punish firms that he perceives as “too woke” - and we know that many corporations have placed them on a “no fly list” for new assignments. But primarily, we say, the new landscape in lawyerland is because a ‘new breed’ of more aggressive law firms have left many of the stodgy old “white-shoe firms” in the dust.
We made a list of the 50 top law firms in the Governance, Activism and “Deal spaces” - and identified the top partners in each space at each firm, which was no simple task to accomplish. Many of their websites force visitors to peruse the entire list of partner and associate CVs to make an educated guess about who is really who at each firm, and where they are located.
We tried to get at least ten of our top-fifty to sign up for our “Directory of Pre-Vetted Service Suppliers” – with no luck. But readers, if you are really interested in exploring the idea of making changes in, or making carefully selected additions to your outside counsel teams, please reach out and we can help you narrow the field down considerably.
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