‘We are in growth mode,’ announces Joshua Lipshutz, chief operating officer of Gibson Dunn, as he beams into the boardroom of the firm’s London office via Zoom. An apt statement for a firm that has stormed into the Global 100’s top ten in a year where many firms’ revenues have faltered.
Up four places from its position in 2022, the firm has achieved revenue of $2.74bn, marking a 10% increase from last year and a 67% increase over the past five years. This places the firm in its 27th year of consecutive revenue growth. PEP looks equally buoyant, with the firm seeing a respectable 11% increase to $4.92m.
‘Barbara Becker has been our chair for the last two and a half years and we have spent that time really investing in the business and investing in London in particular. We are focusing on our key practice areas, on our key geographies, and we have built tremendous momentum. The San Francisco Bay Area, Texas, New York, London, the Middle East – these are all areas where we are heavily investing in talent, both in terms of bringing in top-level lateral talent, but also in terms of developing and supporting and promoting internal talent,’ Lipshutz explains.
These investments have included some eye-catching lateral hires. In America, the firm has recruited former US Court of Appeal judge Gregg Costa to its Houston office, as well as Ashlie Beringer, Facebook’s former deputy general counsel, to its Palo Alto office and ex-chief privacy officer at Apple, Jane Horvath, to its Washington branch. Meanwhile, in the Middle East the firm has had two office launches this year, announcing an office opening in Abu Dhabi in January, and Riyadh in November.
‘The main focus for the firm, and for Barbara and me, is to make sure our entire platform around the globe is connected, collaborating and working together to find opportunities and work with the best clients on their most important issues,’ Lipshutz adds.
Disputes pedigree
Historically, the firm has been regarded as a disputes powerhouse. A reputation it maintains, with managing partners at peer firms in seemingly universal agreement as to Gibson Dunn’s strength in its commercial litigation, arbitration, white-collar defence and investigations, and regulatory work. One managing partner at a US firm says: ‘We see [Gibson Dunn] a lot, particularly in the commercial litigation and white-collar space. It’s an excellent firm, with excellent lawyers. It’s got a lot of great people in various different spots from DC to New York to California.’ Another managing partner at an American firm adds: ‘It is a high-quality firm with an impressive bunch of lawyers. I have a lot of professional respect for them.’
In London, both Penny Madden KC, co-partner in charge of the London office and Charles Falconer KC, former UK Lord Chancellor, are given particular praise by peers. In the US, meanwhile, Joe Warin, head of litigation in Washington DC and co-chair of its global white-collar defence and investigations practice group, garners a great deal of respect. ‘Warin is a legendary white-collar lawyer, he is a first-rate representative for companies and very well respected by the government,’ says one managing partner. Reed Brodsky in the firm’s New York office also gets a mention as ‘a formidable adversary’ and ‘a very excellent trial lawyer’, while Kendall Day is described as a ‘top notch, excellent white-collar lawyer’.
This respect extends to the Bar, with one leading barrister and arbitrator saying: ‘Having seen the Gibson Dunn London team in action in a recent arbitration matter it is clear that the quality of its lawyers, and the approach taken to the preparation of cases for clients is top level, and merits the firm’s inclusion in the global rankings at this level. It has an outstanding roster of experienced advocates and practitioners and, although it is very low-key in terms of self-publicity, the client experience must be highly positive.’
They add: ‘I know some of the partners a bit, more socially than anything else, and they are without exception charming, effective, experienced people with a strong emphasis on a commercial outlook on cases as well as the aforementioned immaculate case preparation. Would not hesitate to recommend them to a party looking for representation in a “bet the company” matter.’
‘We are focused on making sure, globally and specifically in London, that the transactional team is as high profile as the disputes team.’
Penny Madden KC, Gibson Dunn
Bet the company and crisis management are strong points for the firm, and something of a Gibson Dunn hallmark. Key mandates from the last few years include acting for Yukos Capital to obtain a $5bn award in an energy treaty arbitration against the Russian Federation. The matter concerned novel issues regarding the provisional application of international treaties, as well as grappling with the definition of investment under public international law. It also successfully represented Amazon against the New York attorney general’s lawsuit challenging its Covid-19 safety policies. The firm also acted for General Electric, successfully persuading the Second Circuit to dismiss a $1.1bn lawsuit. Further review was denied by the Supreme Court.
Transactional uptick
However, one area managing partners at peer firms and former Gibson Dunn partners are less certain about is the firm’s corporate capabilities. The general perception is that the transactional practices are outshone by their litigious siblings.
This is an image the firm is keen to shake. ‘We are focused on making sure, globally and specifically in London, that the transactional team is as high profile as the disputes team,’ explains Madden. To achieve this, the firm has doubled down on recruiting top talent including M&A partners Alice Brogi and Robert Dixon, who both moved from Vinson & Elkins, and private equity partners Wim De Vlieger, Isabel Berger and Till Lefranc to its London office. The trio moved from Sidley.
‘Those hires have galvanised the transactional capabilities and it’s been an incredibly seamless collaboration between the very strong partners already here and these high-profile lateral hires,’ she adds.
Recent leadership changes also signal a greater emphasis being placed on the transactional side, with Becker’s M&A background (she served as co-chair of the firm’s M&A practice group for over a decade) and the decision to have co-managing partners for the London office: Madden with her international arbitration background and Ali Nikpay with his competition expertise.
Nikpay argues that these investments are beginning to pay dividends. ‘Clients come to us when it really matters, particularly on litigation, but now increasingly on the transactional side. For example, the VMware transaction,’ he says, referring to VMware’s $61bn sale to Broadcom, one of the biggest tech deals of the year.
‘Today we’re competing for the very biggest global mandates on the transactional side, in the same way we’ve always competed very successfully for the critical big-ticket litigation,’ he adds.
Other key transactional mandates for the firm include advising Pioneer Natural Resources on its $64.5bn merger with ExxonMobil and advising the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and ADNOC Gas on its IPO. The IPO raised gross proceeds of roughly $2.5bn. This is currently the largest-ever listing on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.
Emphasis on collaboration
Internally, leadership places a great emphasis on fostering an atmosphere of collaboration. ‘Culture is incredibly important to the firm. We pride ourselves on having a really unique, supportive and collaborative culture. This is a firm where the lawyers really like working together and are always looking out to make sure the best possible lawyer is in front of the client,’ says Lipshutz.
However, translating ‘good’ culture from a lofty ideal to a lived reality can prove difficult in the exacting and combative world of Big Law. Living up to market perceptions, the firm has approached the challenge with diligence, embedding behavioural incentives into its structure, alongside headline statements from management. ‘Critically, our culture is supported by the incentive structure within the firm that promotes collaboration. There’s no disincentive on me asking someone to work on something or take on a client. In fact, I’m incentivised to,’ explains Madden.
Such incentives include a lack of origination credit and a sole profit and loss account. Former partners are quick to link these governance decisions with creating a positive culture, where partners are incentivised to work for the good of the firm rather than their individual practices.
‘That’s intentional,’ says Lipshutz. ‘It’s because we’re not looking to create silos. We’re not looking to create individual departments or individual geographies that act on their own. The goal is for everybody to be working together and that way we succeed both individually and collectively as a firm.’
The result is an unusually fluid approach to client ownership and responsibility. ‘It’s staggering but I guarantee you across the firm, if I phone up a partner, even a partner I don’t know well, that partner will leap in and say how can I help,’ says Madden.
Nikpay takes a similar view: ‘You often hear from friends at other firms that some of their partners are a bit cautious of introducing their clients to others. The difference is that we don’t think of “my client or your client”; it’s the firm’s client.’
This collaborative sentiment appears to chime with the experiences of Gibson Dunn alumni. Several ex-partners declined interviews on the basis of continuing friendships with current partners, and their positive experience at the firm. Those who were happy to comment were generally positive. ‘The culture? It was fair. It was very money focused and very focused on hard work, but it was fair. I never felt it was an unpleasant place. It was a perfectly reasonable place to be if you were performing well,’ says one.
However, as with any large organisation it is not always plain sailing behind the scenes. In 2022, long-serving chair and managing partner Kenneth Doran, who held the role for almost two decades, was succeeded by Becker. Although widely admired by market commentators, her succession was followed by the departure of litigation heavyweights Randy Mastro and Mark Kirsch to King & Spalding in 2022, leading to a period of upheaval for the New York office.
One former partner says of this time: ‘The transition of power from former chairman Kenneth Doran to Barbara Becker was not seamless.’ They add: ‘I don’t love leadership vacuums, but it sometimes happens when you have transitions of power.’
Nevertheless, the changing of the guard did come with its benefits. ‘The public-facing piece of the department appears more diverse since Randy’s departure. There hadn’t been much emphasis before Randy’s departure on promoting women to leadership roles,’ the ex-partner explains.
In response, the firm states that as of 16 October 2023, 53% of the partners-in-charge are diverse lawyers, 46% of practice group heads are diverse and 72% of practice groups have a diverse lawyer as a chair/co-chair. It adds that 40% of its management and executive committees have a diverse background. It highlights that the firm has 142 women partners, which is a 153% increase over the past decade.
Despite these teething problems, the financial metrics speak for themselves, and the firm looks set for further steady, and calculated progress. To paraphrase one former partner, the Americans are very good at grinding on and on, and that is why the firm has a track record of 27 years of consecutive revenue growth. It is in no rush.