Sullivan & Cromwell National Security Practice Answers US Moves

Sullivan & Cromwell is starting a national security practice as the US increasingly emphasizes corporate enforcement that overlaps with security interests.

The Wall Street law firm, with major clients JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Barclays, said the new practice responds to a “sharpening” focus on national security that touches areas such as sanctions, cybersecurity and mergers and acquisitions.

“We have been seeing in recent years much greater emphasis both on the regulatory and enforcement side on national security,” Nicole Friedlander, a former federal prosecutor who helps lead the new practice, said in an interview. “What is national security? The government’s view of what it is has been expanding.”

The practice launch follows recent hires of Andrew DeFilippis and Amanda Houle, two former national security lawyers in the US Attorney’s office for New York’s Southern District. Houle led the office’s national security and international narcotics unit before joining Sullivan & Cromwell in September, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Friedlander, who co-heads Sullivan & Cromwell’s cybersecurity practice, will lead the national security group along with lawyers including Adam Szubin, a former director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and a member of the firm’s financial services group.

Sullivan & Cromwell, which has a long-established specialty in financial services work, finished 2023 with $1.9 billion in gross revenue and $6.3 million in profits per equity partner, both slight upticks from the prior year, according to American Lawyer data.

The firm joins rivals positioning themselves for corporate work intersecting with national security. O’Melveny & Myers in January said it created a national security enforcement task force. Debevoise & Plimpton that month poached Rick Sofield, a former director of the Justice Department’s foreign investment review staff, from Vinson & Elkins to chair its national security group.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in public comments last October said the Justice Department filed corporate enforcement actions to protect national security in “unprecedented numbers and unexpected industries.” She also announced the department was adding 25 corporate crime prosecutors to Justice’s national security division and increasing the number of prosecutors in the criminal division’s bank integrity unit by 40%.