While Herbert Smith Freehills is one of the best-known legal brands in the UK, it is fair to say that Kramer Levin does not have the same name recognition. So who is HSF’s prospective merger partner? Here’s everything you need to know.
The basic rationale for the merger is simple. The merged firm, which will be known as HSF Kramer in the US and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer elsewhere, brings together HSF’s substantive presence across the UK, APAC, and EMEA markets and £1.3bn in revenues – with Kramer Levin’s US name recognition and profitability, handing HSF an expanded foothold in the States.
But Kramer Levin is not well known on this side of the Atlantic. This does not mean it is small – its 2023 revenue was a respectable $435.22m, according to data from AmLaw – similar in turnover terms to UK top 30 firms such as Macfarlanes and DAC Beachcroft. This is just another indicator of the sheer size of the US market, where Kramer sits just outside the top 100 firms by revenue.
With that in mind, here’s a quick Kramer Levin explainer to get less familiar observers up to speed.
History
Kramer Levin, full name Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, was founded in 1968 in New York City, where it is still headquartered. It first established an international presence in 1999 when it acquired legacy Rogers & Wells’ Paris office, which spun off ahead of that firm’s 2000 merger with Clifford Chance – although it has been confirmed that the US firm’s Paris office will split off ahead of the combination.
It opened in Silicon Valley in 2011 and in Washington DC in 2022, the latter through a combination with disputes boutique Robbins Russell.
Key personnel
| Name | Position |
|---|---|
| Paul Schoeman | firmwide co-managing partner |
| Howard Spilko | firmwide co-managing partner |
| Paul Andre | Silicon Valley office managing partner |
| Gary Orseck | Washington DC office co-managing partner |
| Jennifer Windom | Washington DC office co-managing partner |
| Dana Anagnostou | Paris office co-managing partner |
| Sébastien Pontillo | Paris office co-managing partner |
Key metrics
| Year | Revenue | YOY change | PEP | YOY change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $423m | 9.3% | $2.33m | 8.3% |
| 2019 | $398m | -5.9% | $2.16m | -7.2% |
| 2020 | $390m | -2% | $2.30m | 6.3% |
| 2021 | $449m | 15.1% | $2.79m | 21.3% |
| 2022 | $421.44m | -6.1% | $2.38m | -14.7% |
| 2023 | $435.22m | 3.3% | $2.41m | 1.3% |
Kramer Levin has the higher PEP and lower revenues typical of a US-focused firm. What is perhaps most notable is the size of its 2021 spikes to both metrics. Neither is out of line with the Global 100 average rates for 2021-22 – 15% revenue growth and 19% PEP.
But Kramer Levin experienced a harsher fall than the average firm in 2022, when our Global 100 overview reported average revenue up 1% and average PEP down 3%.
| Metric | Change 2018-23 |
|---|---|
| Revenue | 2.9% |
| PEP | 3.4% |
Kramer Levin’s five-year growth metrics are likewise well below both the bar set by its larger competitors (this year’s Global 100 reported average five-year revenue growth of 40%) and by HSF, which grew revenue by 26.8% and PEP by 29.9% in the five years up to 2023-24.
Legal 500 rankings
Kramer Levin has solid representation in the core US transactional rankings, with a tier 3 ranking for private equity buyouts up to $500m and tier 2 in sub-$500m M&A, where co-managing partner Spilko is a leading lawyer.
On the contentious side, the firm is ranked tier 2 in white-collar criminal defence: advice to individuals and tier 4 in advice to corporates, with tier 3 rankings in general commercial disputes and appellate work before both courts of appeal and supreme courts, with Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice head Roy Englert ranked in the Legal 500’s Hall of Fame.
The firm’s strongest rankings, however, are in immigration, advertising and marketing litigation, land use and zoning, and restructuring, where it is recognised in tier 1 for both corporate and municipal restructurings.
According to one HSF partner, the most closely connected practice areas are restructuring, bankruptcy, and insolvency, while others in the market point to synergies in litigation and international arbitration.
There is no overlap between Kramer Levin’s and HSF’s US rankings – HSF, which has a 17-partner office in New York, is recognised in tier 2 for consumer product class action defence and in tier 4 for international arbitration.
In France, by contrast, each of the two firms is ranked in the six practice areas (listed below), crossover which is likely to have been a factor behind the decision for the France office to spin off ahead of the combination.
- Mergers & acquisitions
- EU, competition and distribution
- Banking and finance: transactional work
- Banking and finance: bank regulatory
- Dispute resolution: commercial litigation
- Dispute resolution: stock market litigation
Kramer Levin’s two highest rankings in France are its tier 2 positions in bank regulatory, where Hugues Bouchetemble is a leading partner, and venture capital.
The two firms also share several key clients. Most notable among these are Meta, which Kramer has represented in litigation including a victory in a novel stockholder lawsuit this April, and which HSF acts for in the ongoing Gormsen v Meta case before the CAT, and BlackRock, a key corporate client of Kramer Levin’s that HSF has also handled work for, as well as a number of other major financial services firms.
alexander.ryan@legalbusiness.co.uk