Goodwin

Founded more than a century ago, Goodwin has grown to more than 1,800 lawyers in 16 offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The firm operates on what it calls a “capital-meets-innovation platform,” through which the firm advises both innovators and investors in the financial, private equity, real estate, technology, and life sciences industries.

Ethics First

In 1912, Harvard classmates Robert Goodwin and Joseph Procter ran into each other in the street and decided to start a law practice together, opening Goodwin & Procter later that year. Two years later, the founders helped a sardine packing company issue preferred stock but later discovered the company financials had been fabricated. They took out a $30,000 loan to buy back all the outstanding shares at face value and established an ethical standard for their new firm. Fraud would play another key role in the early days of the firm when Robert Goodwin served as the bankruptcy referee who sorted out the original Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Charles Ponzi himself. 

Technology Trailblazers

Goodwin’s strengths include real estate, capital markets, private equity, technology and life sciences, financial services, intellectual property, securities litigation, and white collar defense and government investigations. The firm’s corporate practice is among the top 20 in Vault’s General Corporate practice area ranking and includes everything from capital markets, debt finance, and financial restructuring to M&A, private investment funds, and venture capital.

The firm also has a bustling real estate practice with a global reach. Among the areas that its real estate lawyers tackle are hospitality and leisure deals, joint ventures, portfolio and real investment trust M&A, and private equity and debt financings. The firm partners with Columbia Business School annually to present its Real Estate Capital Markets Conference. The firm has also launched an initiative called Proptech, which brings together its real estate and technology lawyers to address the increasing intersection between real estate and technology.

Across the Map

Over the past several decades, Goodwin has grown internationally too.  Goodwin’s Hong Kong office represents private equity, venture capital, M&A, IP, and capital markets clients, and also features technology and life sciences, hospitality, real estate, and anti-corruption practices. With a focus on private equity, venture, and fund matters, Singapore is part of the firm’s full-service Asia practice advising clients across the technology, life sciences, financial services, and real estate industries. The London office focuses on real estate, fund formation, private equity, hospitality, technology, life sciences, and dispute resolution. The Frankfurt office houses one of the leading teams in the European real estate, finance, and corporate sectors. The Paris office advises on private equity and M&A work and has expanded to serve clients on complex real estate, financial restructuring, and tax matters. Goodwin’s Cambridge office in the heart of the Silicon Fen focuses on life sciences and technology, and the Luxembourg office works with the firm’s existing London-based Luxembourg desk to offer a single solution for clients raising and deploying capital in Europe. The firm’s Munich office opened in 2022 to grow its European private equity platform.

• Advised Novo Holdings in its entry into a merger agreement with Catalent, Inc. under which Novo Holdings will acquire Catalent in a $16.5 billion all-cash transaction.
• Secured a landmark immigration victory before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of a pro bono client in Wilkinson v. Garland.
• Advised Astera Labs, a company providing semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for cloud and AI infrastructure, on the completion of its $774 million upsized Nasdaq IPO.
• Advised Urban Partners on the closing of its €3.6 billion NREP Nordic Strategies Fund V, the largest European focused value-add real estate fund to date.

• #1 Firm for Global M&A by Deal Count, 2023 - LSEG
• Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity Law Firm of the Year, 2023 – Best Lawyers Best Law Firms
• Mansfield Rule 6.0 Certified, 2023 – Diversity Lab
• Licensing & Collaboration Firm of the Year, 2023 – LMG Life Sciences Americas Awards
• Editor’s Choice Law Firm of the Year, 2023 – The British Legal Awards