Shearman & Sterling Shakes Up Leadership

David Beveridge, who has been Shearman & Sterling’s global managing partner, is becoming the law firm’s senior partner – a job that is the equivalent of chairman – as of March 1 this year, the firm announced today.

Beveridge, 57, will follow Creighton Condon, who will return to full-time legal practice, after serving a six-year term as senior partner for the 850-lawyer firm.

Beveridge, who was elected to a six-year term, has been with the firm since he was a summer associate in 1986. George Casey, the firm’s global head of mergers and acquisitions and Adam Hakki, global head of litigation, will become the firm’s global co-managing partners. Each will continue their full-time practices as well as helping Beveridge with client development and key strategic issues.

As the firm’s new leader, the 16th in the firm’s 145-year history, Beveridge said he will focus on growing the firm’s client base in the United States.

“We want to grow our corporate transactional work for now,” Beveridge said in an interview.

About 60 percent of the firm’s attorneys are located in its U.S. offices, and Beveridge said, that he “would like that to go to 70 percent.”

In addition to transactional work, Beveridge said the firm is interested in growing its mergers and acquisitions practice.

In recent years, the firm has strengthened its core practices within its corporate, finance and disputes groups. Its revenues increased by 22 percent since 2012, and its profit per equity partner rose by more than 50 percent over the same period, it reported.

According to the 2017 American Lawyer rankings of firms by profit per partner, Shearman & Sterling ranked No. 25, with 140 partners and $2,165,000 in profits per partner.

However, it has not always been a smooth ride for the firm, which in November 2016 removed some partners from equity status and delayed the promotion of others to full partnership. The same year, several prominent partners, including some mergers and acquisitions partners, departed for another firm.

In 2018, Beveridge said geographical expansion is also in the works, with a new office to open in Korea later this year, he said.

“We have a very strong client base there,” he noted. The Korea office would be in addition to the firm’s existing offices in China, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The firm currently has 21 offices around the globe.

Beveridge, who has been a firm partner since 1995, previously served on the firm’s policy committee and has held various senior leadership roles including Americas Capital Markets Practice Group Leader and co-head of Capital Markets for Asia and Europe. Earlier, he practiced for more than a decade in the firm’s London office.

He has been a capital markets lawyer, advising on high yield offerings. He has represented both issuers and underwriters in the full spectrum of debt, equity and hybrid security offerings in the United States and globally. His experience includes cross-border private equity, acquisition financings and debt restructuring transactions.

During his time as global managing partner, Beveridge worked on improving the firm’s operations, its profitability and running the lateral hiring program.

In his new role as chair of the executive group, he will be in a more strategic role, and aided by Casey and Hakki, who have both spent their entire legal careers at the firm.

They will work with the other executive group members: Kimberly Gardner, the firm’s executive director; Kenneth Johnsen, the firm’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer; and three additional partners from the firm’s U.S., Europe and Asia offices.