Throughout its long and enterprising history, Shearman & Sterling has been at the forefront of the legal profession. Founded in 1873, the firm’s early clients epitomized the important changes occurring in financial and industrial sectors during the nineteenth century, such as the expansion of banking and investment institutions, railroad reorganizations, and the growth of the oil industry. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the firm’s practice encompassed international representation of organizations doing business in the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Now, in the twenty-first century, with an impressive array of talent and professional knowledge, we are capable of addressing the challenges of our clients anywhere in the world.

Shearman & Sterling hires legal assistants to work in all of its practice groups: Antitrust, Asset Management, Bankruptcy & Reorganization, Capital Markets, Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits, Finance, Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory, Intellectual Property Transactional, Litigation, Mergers & Acquisitions, Private Client, Property, and Tax. Generally, legal assistants work directly with partners and associates on matters related to their assigned groups; however, they may also be assigned to cases and/or deals in other practice groups. The firm’s ultimate goal is to allow legal assistants to develop a broad range of experience and skills necessary to grow professionally.

Practice Area Overview

Antitrust
The Antitrust group is focused on finding practical solutions to the myriad of competition issues that clients face in the contemporary business world. Lawyers in the group take a multidisciplinary approach, combining legal and economic knowledge to deliver quality cross-border services quickly and efficiently. The Antitrust team represents clients in a wide array of complex antitrust cases, including mergers and acquisitions, private treble damage actions, federal grand jury investigations into price fixing, market allocation, and bid rigging, as well as cartel and abuse of dominance proceedings before the European Commission and private actions involving competition issues before US courts. Antitrust lawyers regularly appear before the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and the European Union’s Competition Commission. Legal assistants in the Antitrust group assist in organizing and running document reviews and productions, performing economic and market research, preparing premerger notification filings, and organizing and maintaining transaction files and records.

Asset Management
The Asset Management group is counsel to some of the largest fund complexes and investment managers globally. Attorneys represent public and private investment companies, their sponsors, advisors, administrators, and directors. The team works on the formation and structuring of a variety of financial products as well as advising on regulatory and compliance matters. Asset Management lawyers also advise on execution of several types of derivatives products and hybrid instruments across asset classes, such as equity, fixed income, currency, and credit and commoditylinked instruments.

The responsibilities of legal assistants in the Asset Management group include conducting factual and legal research; preparing regulatory filings, draft documents and agreements, and closing documents; and maintaining precedent files for all types of investment vehicles including alternative asset categories.

Bankruptcy & Reorganization
Drawing on Shearman & Sterling’s corporate background, the Bankruptcy & Reorganization group covers all facets of bankruptcy work, including representation of distressed companies and Chapter 11 debtors, creditor committees, banks and other creditors, and buyers and sellers of distressed assets. The group’s lawyers play a leading role in global restructurings and insolvencies.

Legal assistants support the Bankruptcy & Reorganization team in all aspects: organizing and maintaining case files, corporate research, drafting, proofreading and revising documents, monitoring court docket reports, preparing materials for hearings, preparing and maintaining working group lists, preparing fee applications, and cite-checking briefs and memoranda.

Capital Markets
Building on its long history in the financial sphere, the firm’s Capital Markets group is a leader in the development and globalization of capital markets, combining innovative capital-raising strategies with broad transactional experience. Lawyers in the group advise clients on all types of securities deals, regulatory compliance matters, and corporate governance issues, such as initial public offerings, investment grade and high-yield debt offerings, liability management transactions, convertible debt, trust preferred securities, and compliance counseling to non-US multinationals that are subject to US regulatory standards.

Working closely with the Capital Markets team, legal assistants perform research, assist on due diligence investigations and transaction closings, help prepare filings for the US Securities and Exchange Commission, prepare corporate governance documentation, and draft corporate documents.

Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits
Executive compensation and employee benefit plans and arrangements have become indispensable tools for attracting and retaining first-rate talent. The Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits group advises business enterprises, boards, and individuals on every aspect of compensation and executive employment, including retirement and severance arrangements, SEC disclosure and liability regulations, and financial reporting. The group’s lawyers are involved in the crossdisciplinary tax, ERISA, pension investment, securities, asset management, and corporate governance issues that increasingly play a critical role in the legal and regulatory environment of executive compensation.

Operating in this quick-paced setting, legal assistants support the Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits lawyers by helping to prepare correspondence, memoranda, pension and welfare benefits and executive compensation plans, employment agreements, and applications for governmental review. Additionally, they analyze personnel policies and practices, help prepare SEC filings, create corporate profiles, and assist with due diligence.

Finance
The Finance group has one of the most extensive global financial practices of any international law firm. Encompassing three focus areas, Bank Finance, Project Development & Finance, and Structured Finance, the group’s lawyers are involved in all aspects of financial services. The following brief descriptions outline the breadth of the group’s capabilities.

Bank Finance
Representing a range of financial institutions and service providers, Bank Finance lawyers work on tender offers, merger and leveraged recapitalization financings, first and second lien loan structures, senior and subordinated bridge transactions, DIP financings, firm securitizations, syndicated lending transactions, and investment grade lending transactions. A crucial part of the practice involves perfection of a client’s security interest in the assets of a company, another institution, or a high-profile individual. More frequently than not, the transactions involve a sizeable international component.

Structured Finance
Lawyers in the Structured Finance group are engaged in an array of financings, such as asset-backed securities and commercial paper, structured swaps and derivatives, enhanced equipment trust certificates, and research and development joint ventures.

Legal assistants in the Finance group participate in a wide variety of matters, such as performing corporate research; drafting ancillary agreements, documents, and correspondence; initiating lien searches; preparing UCC filings to perfect security interests; and organizing and assisting in closings.

Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory
The Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory group works with financial institutions, exchanges, ECNs/MTFs, clearing and settlement providers, fund firms, and corporations. The group’s lawyers provide advice and related transaction support on laws and regulations of key financial centers, including regulatory/compliance issues, business structure, and regulatory relationships.

Legal assistants in the group work on many different assignments, but primarily assist attorneys with the representation of the firm’s financial institution clients. These duties include preparation and filing of registration forms and fees with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and applicable state regulatory authorities, as well as registration and qualification of appropriate personnel. Legal assistants also research state securities laws; prepare a Blue Sky Survey as a guide for the underwriters in distributing offering materials to prospective purchasers; prepare various forms for states and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority; and maintain files for each offering.

Intellectual Property Transactional
The Intellectual Property Transactional group handles intellectual property issues arising in corporate and financial transactions. The group provides advice on a wide range of intellectual property and technology matters, including intellectual property issues in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and financing transactions, and the formation of joint ventures, licensing and technology transactions, trademark prosecution, and intellectual property portfolio development counseling.

Legal assistants in the Intellectual Property Transactional group participate in the group’s transactions, such as performing intellectual property-related due diligence, which includes conducting ownership, lien, and litigation searches; drafting ancillary agreements; and preparing various filings. Legal assistants in the group also have an active role in managing the firm’s trademark prosecution practice.

Litigation
Involved in some of the most prominent commercial, criminal, and enforcement actions, the Litigation group represents clients in trial and appellate work in courts throughout the United States and Europe and before international arbitration panels and tribunals, including the International Chamber of Commerce and the London Court of International Arbitration. Areas of the practice cover securities class actions and related SEC investigations, civil antitrust matters, breach of contract, contested takeovers, fraud claims, and intellectual property disputes, as well as white-collar criminal actions.

Litigation legal assistants accompany the group’s lawyers to court; aid in trial preparation, including all aspects of the discovery process; review client files; organize and develop background materials for depositions; prepare filings for court; cite-check legal memoranda; and conduct research.

Mergers & Acquisitions
Ranked among the world’s leading advisors, Shearman & Sterling’s M&A group handles a full range of transactions, such as acquisitions and dispositions of privately owned companies, divisions and subsidiaries, joint ventures and strategic alliances, and substantial equity investments. Lawyers in the group also represent companies in shareholder meetings and proxy contests. The firm’s clients include leading industrial, service, and financial organizations, as well as growth companies and private equity funds.

In the collaborative environment of the M&A group, legal assistants participate in all stages of the group’s transactions, from initial engagement of a transaction to the closing of a deal. Legal assistants create corporate profiles, assist with due diligence, incorporate and dissolve companies, maintain stock transfer ledgers and case files, and draft corporate documents and SEC filings.

Private Client
The Private Client group has an active trust and estates practice, representing high-net-worth individuals and families, privately owned companies, and important private foundations and charitable organizations. The group’s lawyers advise on succession arrangements, complex estate and trust administrations, family-limited partnerships, tax-favored structures for overseas investments, contested estate and trust proceedings, and bequests of fine art collections, among other related matters.

Private Client legal assistants work on a variety of matters, such as drafting probate documents; helping with valuations of estate assets; collecting, maintaining, and distributing estate assets; administering trusts and estates; preparing and filing federal and state estate tax returns and federal gift tax returns; attending tax audits; and preparing estate and trustee accountings.

Project Development & Finance
Project Development & Finance lawyers advise a diverse clientele on international infrastructure projects, from gold mines and power plants in Chile to the Panama Canal expansion to LNG facilities in Nigeria. The group is involved in initial development, restructuring and refinancing of projects, project mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, political risk insurance and split-risk arrangements, and international dispute resolution as it relates to projects. The group’s clientele includes sponsors, financial institutions, placement agents, underwriters, and contractors. Legal assistants in the group provide assistance with due diligence; perform corporate research; maintain transaction files; perform UCC searches and filings and assist with closing activities.

Real Estate 
Immersed in transactions concerning some of the world’s most iconic structures, the Real Estate group has a reputation for sophistication and excellence in the areas of acquisitions and dispositions, financings, development, environmental regulation, fund formation, joint ventures, and leasing. Working globally, lawyers in the group counsel diverse parties, including pension plans, tax-exempts, and investors, on retail, industrial, office, hotel, resort, residential, timber and agricultural, recreational, and mixed-use properties. Legal assistants review title reports, lien searches and land surveys, and draft mortgages and mortgage release documents, organizational documents, officer’s certificates, UCC financing statements, and other ancillary transaction documents. Legal assistants also conduct legal research, prepare due diligence summaries, form and maintain corporations and limited liability companies, assist with closings, and maintain transaction and document files.

Tax
In its representation of multinational companies in cross-border transactions and financial offerings, the Tax group provides state-of-the-art advice on tax law and its global development. Given that there are tax consequences to almost all commercial activity, the group’s lawyers are involved in a variety of transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, post-acquisition restructurings and reorganizations, spin-offs, split-offs, and spinmerger deals, bankruptcy work-outs, debt-equity swaps, recapitalizations and distressed loan transactions, structured finance and tax-advantaged investments, and public and private real estate contracts. Additionally, the Tax group litigation team advises clients on disputes with the Internal Revenue Service, both before the agency and in court. The group’s lawyers have tried cases before the United States Tax Court, the Court of Federal Claims, and the district courts.

The Tax group legal assistants are involved in all phases of the group’s work, including organizing and managing transaction files, coordinating the administration of closings and tax controversy proceedings, researching tax issues and model tax disclosure, as well as monitoring new tax regulations and legislation and maintaining client and team resource and precedent files.