lawyer

#Chicago law firms

The Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher Flom LLP, which opened in 1984, offers clients the combination of a global law firm s resources and an intimate understanding of how business is done in The City That Works.

Our office comprises 170 attorneys offering a variety of legal services to local, national and international clients doing business in the Midwest and around the globe, in areas including:

• mergers and acquisitions (negotiated and hostile), having worked on three of the five largest M&Amp;A deals involving Chicago companies in 2008 (Crain s Chicago Business );
• corporate restructuring advice to companies experiencing financial difficulties, purchasers of and investors in distressed companies, and lenders to and creditors of such companies on both high profile and middle market business reorganizations, debt restructurings and financing matters;financing transactions, including initial public offerings; other public offerings of debt and equity securities; syndicated loan facilities; mezzanine financings; private placements; working capital and asset-based financings; structured products and special purpose financings;
• litigation, notably corporate and corporate governance issues, regulatory and internal investigations, disputes arising from bankruptcy proceedings, and large, complex mass tort cases;
• general corporate advice, including securities law compliance, corporate governance and shareholder activism;
• complex corporate and partnership tax matters;
• real estate development, transactions and financings, including for various real estate investment trusts (REITs); and
• investment management and financial products, including regulated investment companies (RICs) and business development companies (BDCs).

For the past 25 years, our Chicago attorneys have been acknowledged as leaders in their respective fields. More than half of Skadden s Chicago-based partners are recognized by Chambers USA: America s Leading Lawyers for Business 2011. Our diverse practice area strengths also have been repeatedly noted by the legal and business press. The Legal 500, Chambers Global, The International Who s Who of Business Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, IFLR1000, Tax Directors Handbook and other publications have cited Skadden s Chicago corporate, corporate restructuring, litigation and regulatory attorneys numerous times.

Our Experience

Skadden advises numerous global businesses and top Midwestern companies, in particular, in transactions, litigation and regulatory matters. A few of our recent matters include representing:

• CME Group Inc. in its $11.5 billion acquisition of NYMEX Holdings, Inc. Skadden also represented CME in its $10.6 billion merger with CBOT Holdings, Inc. in 2007;
• Delphi Corporation in its four-year restructuring of more than $22 billion in liabilities and successful 2009 emergence from Chapter 11. At the time, Delphi s 2005 Chapter 11 filing was both the largest U.S. auto-related bankruptcy and the largest reorganization case ever of a manufacturing company;
• CF Industries Holdings, Inc. in its proposed unsolicited $4.3 billion bid for Terra Industries Inc. Concurrently, Skadden is representing CF in a proposed unsolicited $4.6 billion bid for CF by Agrium Inc. (Canada);
• Guidant Corp. in its $27 billion acquisition by Boston Scientific Corporation, creating one of the largest medical technology companies in the world;
• Pactiv Corporation. a leader in the consumer and foodservice packaging markets, in its approximately $6 billion acquisition by Reynolds Group Holdings Limited, a leading global manufacturer and supplier of consumer food and beverage packaging and storage products;
• Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.. the world s second-largest commercial real estate broker, in its $613 million acquisition of the Staubach Co. in 2008;
• Residential Capital Corp.. the second-largest independent mortgage lender in the United States, in connection with its restructuring efforts, including a restructuring of approximately $13 billion in secured bilateral financing facilities with various lenders;
• State Farm Automobile Insurance Co. before the Illinois Supreme Court in obtaining the reversal of a nationwide class action judgment of more than $1 billion, one of the largest in Illinois history and the largest ever against an insurance company;
• VeraSun Energy Corporation. the largest ethanol producer in the United States, in its Chapter 11 cases, including a $215 million debtor-in-possession financing and its approximately $477 million sale via an auction of seven ethanol facilities to Valero Renewable Fuels Company LLC;
• Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in its approximately $23 billion merger with Mars Inc. in 2008. The deal brought together two of the world s largest confectionary companies; and
• the special committee of the board of directors of Tribune Company in the $13 billion acquisition of the company via a going-private transaction that included an equity infusion from Sam Zell.

The Chicago office provides diversified legal services across 11 primary practice areas and, where appropriate, draws upon our resources in other Skadden offices to meet our clients needs. Our unparalleled integration and depth of our transactional, litigation and regulatory practices across Skadden s global footprint enable us to negotiate and close complex transactions on a fast-track and cost-effective basis.

Our Lawyers

Attorneys in our Chicago office have been recognized as leaders in their respective areas of law. One of our partners is one of only two lawyers to be named to the Crain s Chicago Business Who s Who in Chicago Business list every year since its inception 20 years ago; another partner is one of only two lawyers to be inducted into the Turnaround, Restructuring and Distressed Investing Industry Hall of Fame ; one of our partners recently was named one of Chicago s best 40 under 40 lawyers by the Chicago Lawyer and Chicago Daily Law Bulletin ; and several of our partners have been named by American Lawyer as a Dealmaker of the Year. Others have held positions including as a senior White House legal adviser under President George W. Bush; an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and the chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitutional Convention that wrote the Illinois Constitution. They have lectured and written on virtually every topic in the legal canon, and a number of our partners have served as adjunct faculty for Midwest and other universities.

In addition to the traditional practice of law, our attorneys play a vital role in the firm s longstanding commitment to pro bono service. We have provided thousands of hours of pro bono legal assistance to The AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, Cabrini Green Legal Aid Clinic, Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, The Law Project, Lawyers for the Creative Arts, Legal Aid Bureau, Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, National Immigrant Justice Center (formerly Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center) and other local organizations. We also have handled wrongful conviction, death penalty and constitutional litigation matters, including before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Our attorneys also have been active for many years in community leadership positions, including serving or having served as a past president and chairman of the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc.; a director of The Chicago Bar Foundation; a director of the Midtown Educational Foundation; a director of Catholic Charities of Chicago; a director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library; a director of Appleseed, a national public interest legal organization and Chicago Appleseed; and a former member of the International Advisory Council of the 2016 Chicago Olympic Committee.