Proskauer Rose

Proskauer Rose LLP

Proskauer Rose
Headquarters	New York, New York
No. of offices	11
No. of attorneys	750+
Major practice areas	Full service law firm
Key people	Allen I. Fagin, Firm Chairman
Revenue	$627 million USD (2007)
Date founded	1875
Company type	Limited Liability Partnership
Website	www.proskauer.com

Founded in 1875, Proskauer Rose, formerly known as Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn, LLP, is one of the United States' largest law firms, providing a wide variety of legal services to clients throughout the United States and around the world from offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston, Boca Raton, Chicago, Newark, New Orleans, São Paulo, London, Hong Kong, and Paris.

Practice Overview

Proskauer Rose is a full-service law firm, practicing in all areas important to businesses, including corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, real estate transactions, bankruptcy and reorganizations, taxation, litigation, trusts and estates, intellectual property, and labor and employment law. Its clients include participants in many industries, including chemicals, entertainment, financial services, health care, hospitality, information technology, insurance, internet, manufacturing, media and communications, pharmaceuticals, real estate investment, sports, and transportation.

Proskauer Rose is particularly well known for their sports law department, with clients including Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NHL, and the NBA. In December 2006 The Legal U.S. 500's annual ranking of the top law firms for corporate work singled Proskauer out for excellence in several categories, including private equity, international M&A, high-yield debt and hedge fund formation.

History

Throughout its history, the firm's headquarters has been located in the area of Times Square, in midtown Manhattan, where it grew from fewer than a dozen lawyers originally to nearly 800. A full-service practice, it is currently among the ten largest law firms in New York City.

William R. Rose started the firm that is now Proskauer Rose when, at 21 years of age, he opened a law firm on Broadway in Downtown Manhattan in 1875. In 1907, Rose promoted associate Benjamin Paskus to partner renamed the firm Rose & Paskus. Rose & Paskus was one of the first firms to develop a specialized tax practice after the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. In 1930, Judge Joseph M. Proskauer resigned his position on New York's Appellate Division to join the firm, which was then renamed Proskauer, Rose & Paskus. The firm shortened its name to simply Proskauer Rose in 1997.

Proskauer Rose is historically known as a "Jewish law firm" for its willingness to cross traditional historic and cultural hiring norms that other major New York City law firms were unwilling to do at the time. Because of their willingness to employ Jewish lawyers, Proskauer is not known as a traditional "white shoe" law firms, though over the past quarter-century they have gained the reputation as one of the "new white shoe" law firms. Because they are not a typical "white shoe" law firm, Proskauer Rose cannot rely on long-standing traditional ties to old money or the big investment banks. Rather, the firm historically focused its practice on corporations in areas as labor and employment law, as well as building up significant litigation, health care, sports, and entertainment, bankruptcy, and taxation practices.

In December 2004, a large group of lawyers from the struggling Boston-based law firm of Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault joined the Boston office of Proskauer Rose.

Revenue and Profitability

In February 2008, Proskauer Rose announced double-digit growth in both profits and turnover for 2007, with revenue at the New York law firm up by almost a fifth to $627.8 million. The 2007 revenue makes it the fortieth largest firm in the United States by revenue. In 2007, Proskauer's profits per equity partner (PEP) increased 19.2% from 2006's $1.3 million to $1.55 million in 2007. These figures place Proskauer Rose as one of the fastest growing law firms in the United States during 2007.

Pro Bono

In 2006, Proskauer attorneys spent over 35,000 hours working on pro bono matters; the firm claims that their attorneys typically spend between 35,000 and 40,000 hours a year working on such matters. In April of 2006 Proskauer Rose began a new program called, “National Pro Bono Initiative.” This program included bringing together representatives from all of the firm's major practice groups and from all of the offices, asking certain lawyers to do pro bono endeavors full-time, and also appointing a “Pro Bona Coordinator.” The purpose of the program is to inject discipline and focus into pro bono work, so that it will be approached on a national as opposed to an office-by-office basis.

Offices

Proskauer Rose is currently in the midst of a strategic growth endeavor to strengthen their international reach. They currently have eleven offices worldwide in the following locations:

• New York, New York, U.S.A. (Main Office)
• Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
• Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
• Beijing, China. (2009)
• Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
• Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A.
• Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. (opened April 2008)
• New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
• Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A.
• São Paulo, Brazil
• London, England
• Paris, France
• Hong Kong

Ranking and Awards

In 2008, Proskauer Rose ranked #40 in Vault's "Overall Prestige" ranking of law firms in the United States. Vault also ranked Proskauer's Labor and Employment Department the sixth best in practice, while their partners were listed as fifth most prestigious.

According to a study by Yale Law Women (co-sponsored by women's law groups at Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Boalt, Northwestern, and Virginia), Proskauer Rose ranked second in their list of top ten family-friendly firms of 2007.

The 2007 Schiltz 100 rankings, designed to indicate the best "Big Law" firms to work for as an associate, lists Proskauer Rose 47th.

In 2007, Proskauer Rose was named among the top United States firms practicing corporate and finance law in The Legal 500 US Volume I: Corporate & Finance, a ranking of the "best of the best" U.S. law firms. Proskauer was named a leader in the following categories: Private Equity; International Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital Markets; Investment Funds - Alternative/Hedge Fund Formation.

In 2008, Proskauer has been named the fastest-growing law firm for the third consecutive year in Boston Business Journal's annual ranking of the area's 100 largest law firms. With the addition of 25 lawyers since January 2007 - a 30-percent growth rate - the firm is ranked 17th in this year' survey.

Fifteen lawyers from Proskauer Rose have been named to Southern California Super Lawyers 2008, an annual guide to the top lawyers in the region (the firm was represented in 10 different practice areas). Selections for Southern California Super Lawyers are based on peer nominations and independent research by the editors of Law & Politics magazine.

Proskauer Rose received the 2003 Special Award of Merit by the New York Women's Bar Association for its contribution to the advancement of women.

It is ranked number 79 (tied with three other firms) in the Avery Index of "2007 The Best New York Law Firms to Work For," which is "based on how content thousands of New York associates feel with their own firms."

Notable Clients and Cases

• While well-known for representing professional sporting organizations such as the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and the National Baseball League, Proskauer also represents such clients as BP America,ChevronTexaco, Exxon Mobil, Metlife, National Maritime Union Trust Funds, Strachan Shipping, RCN Corporation, and United Parcel Service. Notable New York City clients include Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the New York City Ballet, and the New York City Opera.

• Proskauer Rose represented Silverstein Properties, owner of the World Trade Center towers in New York that were destroyed by the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, in a dispute with its insurers.

• The firm has represented BDO Seidman, Deloitte & Touche, and Ernst & Young before the Securities and Exchange Commission.

• Proskauer represented Major League Soccer in the deal to bring David Beckham to the Los Angeles Galaxy.

• The firm represented the League of American Theaters and Producers during the stagehands strike in the fall of 2007.

• The firm won a significant copyright case in 2006 when they represented the rock band The White Stripes against a former producer regarding the ownership rights in the band's first two albums.

• Proskauer represented the NBA against the Oscar Robertson antitrust suit, which established free agency in basketball (the lead litigator, David Stern, lost the case, but the league hired him as its in-house counsel in 1978 and later promoted him to NBA commissioner).

• The firm's New York offices served as the negotiation site surrounding the six-month 1998 lockout of the NBA players.

• Proskauer represented Robert Wood Johnson IV when he purchased the New York Jets for $635 million in 2000.

Practice Areas

Proskauer Rose, a full-service law firm, specializes in the following areas of law:

Alternative dispute resolution Antitrust Appellate litigation Banking and institutional investing Communications Complex mass torts and insurance litigation Consumer financial services enforcement and litigation Corporate Corporation compliance programs Corporate finance Corporate governance Corporate restructuring Derivative financial products, commodities and futures Employee benefits and executive compensation Energy project finance and development Energy regulatory Environmental Environmental (international) Environmental litigation European Union/International Competition Financial institutions Financial services First Amendment Issues Gaming Government contract disputes Government enforcement litigation Health care Health care enforcement and litigation Health care fraud and abuse Information technology and e-commerce Insurance

Intellectual property and technology International arbitration International law and policy International tax International trade Investment management Labor and employment law Lease financing Litigation Mergers and acquisitions Outsourcing Patent and technology litigation, litigation and counseling Pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device licensing Political law Private equity Private investment funds Pro bono Public policy Real estate Real estate investment trusts Securities enforcement and compliance Sports Structured finance Tax Tax controversy and litigation Trademark, copyright, and advertising litigation and counseling Trusts and estates UCC and secured transactions Utilities mergers and acquisitions White collar crime

See also

• White shoe firms

Key Players

Rory J. Albert [1].

External links

• Proskauer Rose law firm website.
• Proskauer Privacy Blog Privacy Blog website.
• International Litigation and Arbitration GuideProskauer on International Litigation and Arbitration Guide.
• Avery Index Law firm rankings list.