Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is a global law firm based in New York City. Founded in 1931 by Harvard Law School alumnus Eli Whitney Debevoise and Oxford-trained William Stevenson, Debevoise specializes in strategic and private equity, M&A, insurance and financial services transactions, private funds, complex litigation, investigations, and international arbitration.
Overview
Debevoise & Plimpton currently employs approximately 655 lawyers in nine offices throughout the world. The firm divides its practices into three major areas: Corporate, Litigation, and Tax. In recent years, the firm's practice has taken on an increasingly international component. Debevoise is the only law firm in the world to have both a former US and UK Attorney-General simultaneously as partners.
Offices
Debevoise & Plimpton has offices across three continents, including in New York City, Washington D.C., London, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. In 2016, Debevoise opened a new office in Tokyo. On June 1, 2020, Debevoise & Plimpton announced the opening of an office in Luxembourg.
Reputation and rankings
Debevoise & Plimpton is consistently among the most profitable large law firms in the world on a per-partner and per-lawyer basis according to American Lawyer magazine's annual AmLaw 100 Survey. Debevoise placed No. 1 overall in The American Lawyer's "10-Year A-List," a ranking of the law firms who have earned the highest cumulative score on the A-List since its inception in 2003. The annual A-List ranks firms according to their performance in four categories: revenue per lawyer, pro bono service, associate satisfaction, and diversity.
ALM's The American Lawyer named Debevoise & Plimpton as 2014 Litigation Department of the Year. As profiled in the January issue and online at , “the Debevoise litigators are like the Army Rangers—a small but elite group that works seamlessly and handles the most challenging cases,” racking up two $25 billion results, two major trial defense wins worth $3.5 billion each, and the largest investor-state award in arbitration history during the August 2011 to July 2013 period on which firms were evaluated.
Four of Debevoise's practice groups were
Debevoise was named
Debevoise was In 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, Debevoise & Plimpton was named as America's Best Law Firm by the American Lawyer in its A-List rankings.
For 2015, Debevoise & Plimpton was .
Ranked as a leading firm in multiple ratings categories by the
Attorneys from Debevoise & Plimpton worked on behalf of prisoners held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Jeff Lang, of Debevoise & Plimpton, was one of the first Guantanamo Bay attorneys to file an appeal in the Federal appeal court in Washington DC of prisoners' Combatant Status Review Tribunal proceedings. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 included provision for prisoners to challenge whether the Tribunals' decisions complied with the Tribunal's mandate. Charles "Cully" Stimson, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, stirred controversy when he went on record criticizing the patriotism of law firms that allowed employees to assist Guantanamo prisoners: "corporate CEOs seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists." Stimson's views were widely criticized. The Pentagon disavowed them, and Stimson resigned shortly thereafter.
2010s
Activision Blizzard in its $5.9 billion acquisition of King.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in its $12 billion acquisition of GE Capital's sponsor lending business, including Antares Capital, the leading lender to middle market private equity sponsors in the United States.
The Dolan family, controlling stockholders of Cablevision Systems Corporation, in Cablevision's $17.7 billion sale to Altice.
Evercore Group as financial advisor to EMC Corporation in its $67 billion sale to Dell, and as financial advisor to DuPont in its $130 billion merger with the Dow Chemical Company.
Exor S.p.A. as insurance M&A counsel in its contested $6.9 billion acquisition of PartnerRe, a Bermuda-based reinsurance company.
Guggenheim Securities, Centerview Partners and Goldman Sachs as financial advisors to Pfizer in its $160 billion acquisition of Allergan.
Lannett in its acquisition for $1.23 billion in cash, plus additional contingent consideration, of Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. specialty generic pharmaceuticals subsidiary of global biopharmaceuticals company UCB.
PharMEDium, a Clayton, Dubilier & Rice portfolio company and the leading national provider of outsourced compounded sterile preparations to acute care hospitals in the United States, in its $2.6 billion sale to AmerisourceBergen.
Westfield Corporation in its $1.1 billion divestiture of five shopping centers in the United States to an investor group led by Centennial Real Estate Company of Dallas, Texas.
Take-Two Interactive Software, in defense of lawsuit filed by actress Lindsay Lohan, which claimed that Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games was in breach of her image rights, as basing its Grand Theft Auto V "Lacey Jonas" character on Lohan without her consent, citing similarities. The case was dismissed on September 1, 2016, then dismissed on Appeal, on March 29, 2018.
