Proskauer Rose

Proskauer Rose LLP

Headquarters	New York, New York
No. of offices	12
No. of attorneys	650+
Major practice areas	Full service law firm
Key people	Joseph M. Leccese, Firm Chairman
Revenue	$643 million USD (2009)
Date founded	1875
Founder	William R. Rose
Company type	Limited Liability Partnership
Website	www.proskauer.com

Proskauer Rose (formerly known as Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn, LLP) is one of the largest law firms in the United States, with twelve offices in the United States and around the world. The firm was founded in 1875.

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 well known for its 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 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 its willingness to employ Jewish lawyers, Proskauer is not known as a traditional "white shoe" law firms, though over the past quarter-century it has gained the reputation as one of the "new white shoe" law firms. Thus it cannot rely on long-standing ties to old money or big investment banks. Rather, the firm has historically focused its practice on 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 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 2006 Proskauer Rose began a new program called the “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 has strengthened its international reach with eleven offices in cities around the world. It currently has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston, Boca Raton, Chicago, New Orleans, Newark, New Jersey, São Paulo, London, Paris and 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.

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 was 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 were named in 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.

Notable clients and cases

• While well known for representing professional sporting organizations such as the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and the National Football 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 Theatres 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.
• The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) hired Proskauer in 2009 to conduct an investigation into its operations and write a report regarding the undercover video controversy.

Notable Alumni

• David Stern, Commissioner of the National Basketball Association
• Gary Bettman, Commissioner of the National Hockey League
• David Kahn, President of basketball operations for the Minnesota Timberwolves

Key players

• Steven C. Krane, late partner and general counsel

External links

• Proskauer Rose law firm website.
• Proskauer Privacy Blog Privacy Blog website.
• International Litigation and Arbitration Guide Proskauer on International Litigation and Arbitration Guide.