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Paul Hastings Chairman Seth Zachary To Step Down After 21 Years
Paul Hastings has announced that its longtime Chairman Seth Zachary will step down from his current role as Chairman of the firm in October 2022. Zachary will be replaced by Frank Lopez, Co-Head of the firm’s Global Securities and Capital Markets Practice.
Zachary is the partner in the firm’s Tax practice and is based in the New York office. He has been serving as the firm’s Chairman since 2000. He focuses his practice on general, corporate, and real-estate-related tax issues and foreign tax issues. He will continue to be a partner in the firm till his retirement in 2024.
Lopez is based in the firm’s New York office and is also a partner in the firm’s Leveraged Finance Practice. Before joining Paul Hastings in 2019, he worked at Proskauer Rose LLP, where he also served as the Co-Head of the firm’s Global Capital Markets Group. He represents private equity sponsors and investments bank in a wide range of domestic and cross-border leveraged finance transactions and private and public debt and equity capital markets offerings.
The firm has also announced that Sherrese Smith has been elected as the Managing Partner and she will assume her new role from the next year. Based in the firm’s Washington D.C. office, she also serves as the Vice-Chair of the firm’s Data Privacy and Cybersecurity practice and is a partner in Media, Technology, and Telecommunications practice. She joined the firm in 2013.
Greg Nitzkowski and Ronan O’ Sullivan, current Managing Partners at the firm, will step down from their current roles later this month. In the interim, Smith and Lopez will act as the firm’s co-managing partners until they begin their three-year terms in their respective new roles next year.
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Nitzkowski has been serving as the Managing Partner since 2000 and he will continue to be a partner in the firm until his retirement in January 2023. Sullivan was appointed as a Managing Partner in 2018. He will continue to be a partner in the firm’s London office. Previously, he also served as the Chair of Paul Hastings’ London office and Vice-Chair of the firm’s Global Corporate Department.
By the time Zachary steps down next year, he will have served three seven-year terms as the firm’s Chair. Under his leadership, the firm increased its lawyer count from 654 to around 1,000. The firm also added 12 offices globally and went from 9 to 21 in terms of the number of offices. Revenue per lawyer doubled and profits per partner and gross revenue tripled under him.
Lopez noted, “Seth is a visionary leader who has transformed Paul Hastings into an elite global law firm defined by legal excellence and a focus on the future.”
This year, the firm added an Energy Transition and Infrastructure Team with 20 partners. The firm’s revenue stood at $1.31 billion in 2020.
Smith said, “Paul Hastings’ reputation in the market has been defined by its strong and steady leadership, and we are excited to continue the strong trajectory set by Seth, Greg, and Ronan. We are well positioned for the future and look forward to building on this incredible foundation.”
