Reed Smith Re-Elects Managing Partner

Alexander Y. “Sandy” Thomas, managing partner of the law firm Reed Smith since Aug. 2014, has been re-elected to serve for a four-year term through July 31, 2021.

Thomas, a former chair of the firm’s litigation department, oversees the business operations of the Pittsburgh-founded firm, which currently has more than 1,700 lawyers in 27 offices worldwide.

In a statement, Thomas called the appointment “an honor and a privilege.”

During Thomas’s first three-year term as managing partner, Reed Smith expanded into Frankfurt, Germany, launched an alliance with Singapore law practice, Resource Law LLC, and opened an office in Miami with a seven-lawyer international arbitration and litigation practice.

Last year, Big Law Business reported that Reed Smith entered and exited merger talks with the smaller Pepper Hamilton of Philadelphia.

Thomas said he looks “forward to further strategic growth” in the firm’s core industry groups: financial, life sciences and health care, media and entertainment, energy and natural resources and shipping.

Thomas, who will also remain chair of the Reed Smith executive committee, is the eleventh managing partner of the 140-year-old law firm.

In a follow-up interview with Big Law Business, he said that over the past year Reed Smith developed a plan, which has received buy-in from partners, to increase firm market share with specific clients and improve profitability.

“The next four years are going to be about achieving that plan,” said Thomas, who declined to identify clients the firm is targeting or profitability goals.

Below, Big Law Business interviewed Thomas at his firm’s New York office in 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZnsU0q-dFE

Write to the reporter at csullivan@bloomberglaw.com.

Write to the editor at gabefriedman@outlook.com.

UPDATED: This post has been amended to correctly reflect that Smith’s new term ends in 2021.