2024 DIVERSITY DATABASE UNDERWRITER Milbank

Milbank LLP is one of the nation’s leading firms for corporate finance and restructuring, litigation, and project finance, and it is known for its international work and focus on the energy sector.

Embracing Change

Milbank planted its roots on Wall Street more than 150 years ago as Anderson, Adams & Young. The firm’s first clients included American entrepreneurs, bankers, and railroad financiers, including the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers. The firm weathered two World Wars, the Great Depression, and a long string of mergers before becoming Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in 1962. Today, the firm has 12 offices across the globe—including its digs in Hudson Yards and London. The firm was rebranded in 2019, shedding the “Tweed, Hadley & McCloy” moniker to become simply Milbank LLP.

Onward and Upward

Milbank is a giant in the corporate law space, with a stellar reputation among leading financial institutions and other corporate clients. The firm’s No. 1 spot in Vault’s Project Finance ranking is just the beginning—Milbank is also among Vault’s top 15 firms for Banking & Financial Services, Securities/Capital Markets, General Corporate Practice, and M&A.

Milbank’s financial restructuring group has consistently ranked as one of the preeminent practices and leaders in its field. The team is often called into action to represent creditors and other key stakeholders, such as the restructuring of the Government of Puerto Rico, Gymboree, J. Crew, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Caesar’s Entertainment, in complicated restructurings. The firm also advises major hedge funds and private equity firms on complex M&A transactions involving swapping debt for equity to de-stress companies.

Given its corporate prowess, Milbank is, unsurprisingly, home to strong securities litigation and white collar defense groups. Among the firm’s ranks are former SEC attorneys (including its former head of enforcement) and five former Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Milbank also has a highly regarded Global Projects, Energy, and Infrastructure practice. The firm has had a hand in bringing a range of infrastructure projects to life, from financing airports and roads to ports and pipelines. On the energy side, the firm works with some of America’s most ambitious offshore wind projects and ethanol producers while keeping a foothold in fossil fuel and metals projects.

Ivy League Training

Milbank’s training programs are truly Ivy League. For one week each year, the firm’s fourth-year through seventh-year associates head to Cambridge to be schooled “Harvard style” on topics ranging from leadership skills to business and client relations through the firm’s program, Milbank@Harvard. The program is taught by professors from Harvard’s Law and Business schools, with Milbank partners offering real-world examples and anecdotes. The firm’s training isn’t limited to the ivory tower, though. On the home front, litigation associates participate in a multiple-year training program called Advocacy@Milbank; transactional associates take part in Deals@Milbank, and in 2020, the firm introduced Restructuring@Milbank for financial restructuring associates.

• Milbank successfully represented an individual accused of criminally possessing allegedly stolen handwritten lyrics to songs from the Eagles’ 1976 album Hotel California. The Manhattan DA voluntarily dropped the criminal charges midway through the trial following our client's motion to dismiss the case based on newly produced evidence.
• Milbank is advising US Steel Corporation in its agreement to be acquired by Nippon Steel in a transaction representing an equity value of approximately $14.1 billion. This transaction is the successful outcome of a comprehensive and robust strategic review conducted by US Steel and its board of directors.
• Milbank represented the EIB, Euler Hermes, KEXIM, KSure, NEXI, Riksgalden and a group of commercial bank lenders in connection with the $5 billion financing for the expansion of Northvolt Ett, an electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing facility in Skellefteå, Sweden. This transaction marks the largest green loan ever secured in Europe.
• Milbank and the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law formed a comprehensive, four-year pro bono partnership to combat inequities in the US criminal justice system with a focus on wrongful conviction, excessive sentencing and clemency. Milbank has pledged $1 million to establish the Milbank Exoneration and Resentencing Review Unit at the Perlmutter Center.

• Litigation Department of the Year, Finalist, 2023—New York Law Journal
• Mansfield Rule Certified, 2023—Diversity Lab
• Practice Group of the Year: Structured Finance, 2023; Project Finance, 2022; Bankruptcy, 2021—Law360
• Top International Counsel in Latin America/Project Finance Law Firm of the Year, 2023—Chambers Latin America
• Top 20 Most Innovative Law Firms in North America-Practice of Law, 2021—Financial Times