In recent days, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP announced that Neil W. Townsend and David B. Cosgrove joined the firm as partners.
Townsend and Cosgrove will practice in the Corporate and Financial Services Department and Private Equity Practice Group in the New York office.
Willkie Co-Chairman Steven Gartner was quoted as saying in a press release at the firm’s website: “The firm continues to enjoy a very successful expansion of our private equity practice. The addition of top talent such as Neil and David helps further our leading position in this area.”
Neil Townsend was quoted as saying in the same press release: “We were drawn to Willkie by the strength and sophistication of their platform, and by their great history, representing buyout funds in the competitive New York and global markets. We are very excited to get started.”
Both Townsend and Cosgrove were formerly partners in Bingham McCutchen’s Private Equity Practice Group. Each represents private equity funds and other financial sponsors and hedge funds in the structuring, negotiation, financing, implementation and restructuring of leveraged buyouts and other investments. In addition, they represent public and private companies in strategic acquisitions, dispositions and securities transactions, as well as in a wide variety of joint venture, capital raising and restructuring transactions.
Founded over 120 years ago, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP was on principles that still distinguish the practice today, including integrity, innovation, pragmatism, flexibility and intellectual agility. These principles enable the firm to constantly meet the dynamic business needs of clients.
Willkie has over 630 attorneys in addition to support staff across eight offices in the U.S. and Europe, including New York, Washington, Paris, London, Milan, Rome, Frankfurt and Brussels. Our practice is globally integrated, yet it enables international offices to function independently in order to deliver the most appropriate localized legal services to our clients—from the Fortune 500 to the pro bono community causes we regularly represent.
The firm’s corporate transactional attorneys have access to expertise in a wide variety of areas including tax, regulatory, real estate, antitrust, bankruptcy, intellectual property, ERISA, litigation and environmental matters.
The firm’s Corporate and Financial Services Department offers clients high-quality services that cover all aspects of corporate and financial transactions, including purchasing and selling businesses and companies, raising capital, and implementing other corporate and commercial transactions. The firm is able to offer these services by combining specialized practice groups with general practitioners who have a broad perspective of business and legal matters.
Willkie’s Corporate Practice covers all facets of private equity transactional activities including mergers and acquisitions, direct equity investments, PIPEs, debt (bank, high yield and mezzanine) finance, dispositions, restructurings, recapitalizations, “club” deals, joint ventures and management compensation issues.
Recognized in the 2010 editions of Chambers USA, Chambers Europe and Chambers Global as having one of the leading private equity transactional practices in the United States and Europe, Willkie is regularly recognized as being among the foremost private equity deal counsel both domestically and internationally.