Cleary Gottlieb Earns Premier Recognition in Legal 500 UK 2022

Cleary Gottlieb continues to achieve recognition as a premier law firm in the 2022 edition of The Legal 500 UK.

The firm received 14 practice rankings, and 14 Cleary lawyers were recognized in their respective practice areas. 

Partners Maurits Dolmans, David Gottlieb, Jonathan Kelly, and Sebastian Sperber were inducted into The Legal 500 UK Hall of Fame; partners Sunil Gadhia, Jackie Holland, Nicholas Levy, and Tihir Sarkar were named “Leading Individuals”; partners James Brady, Paul Gilbert, Polina Lyadnova, and Nallini Puri were selected as “Next Generation Partners”; and counsel Jennifer Maskell and associate Chrishan Raja were named “Rising Stars.”

Cleary received commendations from The Legal 500 UK and clients as a recommended firm in the following practice areas:

• Corporate and Commercial: Corporate Tax: “[Cleary] has an active presence in the M&A market with a broad client base consisting of major banks and financial institutions, large domestic and global multinational companies, sovereign wealth funds, and private investment funds.”
• Corporate and Commercial: Equity Capital Markets – Mid-Large Cap: “[Cleary] is prominent in international capital markets transactions across a large number of jurisdictions, particularly those in the Nordic region, as well as Russia, Turkey, and Israel.”
• Corporate and Commercial: EU and Competition: “[Cleary] has one of the premier competition practices, and its London-based practitioners frequently work with colleagues in Brussels and the U.S. on multijurisdictional M&A and complex investigations at EU and UK level.” “The Cleary team is extremely competent, they know the anti-competition area inside and out and are a pleasure to work with.”
• Corporate and Commercial: M&A: Upper Mid-Market and Premium Deals, £500M+: “Drawing on the firm’s longstanding European presence, the active team at [Cleary] represents a diverse range of clients on high-value, multijurisdictional M&A transactions.”
• Corporate and Commercial: Private Equity: Transactions – High-Value Deals (£250M+): “The M&A team at Cleary is not that big yet very strong. They work on the more complex and high-profile transactions. The team is incredibly hard working and responsive.” “They know the market extremely well, offering both breadth and depth. Very user friendly – always available, able to tell the difference about when to be commercial to progress the deal and when to recommend drawing the line on legal risk. True trusted advisers in every sense.”
• Dispute Resolution: Banking Litigation: Investment and Retail: “Made up of ‘hugely experienced banking litigator partners and a body of high-quality associates’ [Cleary’s] banking litigation team excels in cross-border disputes.” “The Cleary litigation team are immensely bright and hard working.”
• Dispute Resolution: Commercial Litigation: Premium: “With ‘ready access to external expertise and relationships where required for multijurisdictional disputes,’ [Cleary’s] ‘very experienced and sophisticated’ dispute resolution team is known for representing corporates, financial institutions, and sovereigns in cross-border litigation.”
• Dispute Resolution: Competition Litigation: “[Cleary’s] London office represents large multinational companies as defendants in their most complex and high-stakes cases.”
• Dispute Resolution: International Arbitration: “[Cleary’s] London team regularly works on high-value, complex, cross-border commercial arbitrations across a wide variety of sectors, including the telecoms, energy, oil and gas, shipping, and banking and finance industries.”
• Finance: Acquisition Finance: “Able to deploy expertise on both the loan and U.S. high yield front, [Cleary] excels in providing complex and often highly bespoke financing structures for the firm’s borrower-focused client base that includes both private equity sponsors and investment grade corporates.” 
• Finance: Bank Lending: Investment Grade Debt and Syndicated Loans: “They are knowledgeable and practical, with a focus on getting high-quality work done.” “The team has a great depth of knowledge of the available financing vehicles, as well as their use in the current market.” “It is a pro-active and very skilled team. They have a very good understanding of business requirements and the team communicates very well.”
• Finance: Debt Capital Markets: “The team consists of unparalleled experts… Their knowledge of our business and any laws that may be relevant to it is consistent and impressive – they go out of their way to understand our manner of working and business concerns and apply legal developments accordingly.” “Focused on high-end, innovative capital markets work, the firm handles bond offerings under U.S. law and has a strong presence in sovereign debt issuance.”
• Finance: Emerging Markets: “[Cleary] has a long history of involvement with emerging markets, notably Africa, China and Hong Kong, Eastern Europe and Russia, India and Pakistan, Latin America and the Middle East. The firm has one of the world’s leading sovereign wealth fund practices, which sees it act for many state entities on new debt issuances.”
• Finance: High-Yield: “[Cleary] has a long-standing high-yield practice in London that does not handle a high volume of deals but instead focuses on innovative or market-first transactions.” “Excellent all-around team with fantastic capability in both debt and equity market, deep bench and intellectual flexibility.”

View Cleary’s complete results on The Legal 500 UK’s website.