For the fifth consecutive year, Shearman & Sterling has been named to Law360’s Global 20—the list of the 20 law firms that had the biggest global presence and handled the largest, most significant and groundbreaking international and cross-border matters over the past year. The firm jumped from 19 last year to 11 this year in the rankings—the biggest mover among the 20 firms.
Law360 ranks the firm based on five factors: the percentage of the firm's attorneys located outside its home country; the number of offices outside the firm's home country; the number of countries where the firm has at least one office; the practice area breadth of the firm's cross-border and international work; and the size and complexity of the firm's cross-border and international work.
In a Law360 article about the firm’s achievements, Senior Partner Creighton Condon commented that the firm’s size plays a key role in its success. "We’re not a megafirm—we only have 200 partners out of 850 lawyers. So everybody knows everybody,” he said. “When you’re trying to do complicated, fast-moving deals, that is an extraordinary advantage because people are used to and comfortable working with each other," he added.
Dave Beveridge, the firm’s Global Managing Partner, cited Shearman & Sterling’s work in helping Liberty Global issue tracking stock for its Latin American cable business as an example of the firm’s cross-border and cross-disciplinary cooperation. He added, “When it comes to our geographic footprint, we don’t have an office in every city in every country. We’re very focused on where we want to be.”
Other significant matters that landed the firm in the top 20 again include securing a $50 billion arbitral award—the largest in history—for the majority shareholders of Yukos Oil Co.; representing CGN Power Co. Ltd., the largest nuclear power producer in China, in connection with its Hong Kong IPO and global offering—the largest utility and energy deal on record by Chinese issuers; and securing a $1 billion financing related to the development and construction of a new airport in Mexico City—Mexico’s biggest infrastructure project in recent years and among the largest in the world.