Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

A BigLaw powerhouse, Sullivan & Cromwell has created a blueprint for legal success: It has grown internationally and in response to the increasing cross-border M&A, restructuring, and finance transactional demands of the biggest corporate clients in the world.

Kind of a Big Deal

S&C has consistently steered the development of many of the world’s corporate titans for more than 140 years. The firm founders, Algernon Sydney Sullivan and William Nelson Cromwell, advised J.P. Morgan—as in the man himself—during the creation of Edison General Electric in 1882 and later guided key players in the formation of U.S. Steel and the financing of the Panama Canal. These lucrative foreign ventures enabled the firm to be one of the first to expand internationally.

Today, S&C boasts 13 offices across eight countries and handles some of the biggest deals and litigations in the world. It is consistently among the top 10 firms in Vault’s General Corporate, M&A, Project Finance, Securities/Capital Markets, and Banking and Financial Services rankings. Its litigation work is equally highly regarded, especially with respect to securities litigation and white collar defense—two other rankings in which the firm sits among Vault’s top 5 and top 10, respectively.

Generally Speaking

In a world of specialization, S&C is known for its unique generalist approach. S&C associates work across subgroups, industries, and geographic locations to obtain a well-rounded experience. The firm feels its generalist approach makes for better partners, and the vast majority of these partners begin their legal careers with S&C—either directly out of law school or after clerkships or government service—with very few lateral hires. S&C also sends many of its generalist lawyers to work in-house at clients or other companies, in government service, and in other careers.

Associates are armed with a career plan through which they focus on their skills, gaps in experience, and goals. If associates need additional guidance, they can turn to the firm’s internal career and alumni services office, which offers confidential career counseling for attorneys regardless of whether they intend to stay at the firm or pursue a different career path.

Hitting the Books

The firm’s training is robust. It offers extensive internal training programs, and through S&C University—an online, on-demand, in-house viewing platform—lawyers can access recordings of these trainings from their computers. In-house presentations are only the tip of the training iceberg. The firm has a moot courtroom in its New York City office that lawyers can use to prepare for upcoming trials or training. The courtroom can be modified to approximate a trial court, appellate court, or arbitration venue and houses technology such as an interactive markup display. Not all training at the firm is practice-based. The firm also offers regular career development programming. Past topics have included crisis management, resilience, strategies for responding to stress, client development, and self-advocacy.

• Obtained an historic reversal of $18 billion judgment against Argentine Republic, the largest judgment ever entered in the Southern District of New York. Argentina President Javier Milei called this victory “historic, unthinkable, the greatest legal achievement in national history.”
• Advised xAI in its acquisition by SpaceX, creating a vertically- integrated enterprise combining AI, rockets, space-based Internet, direct-to-mobile device communications, and a real-time information and free speech platform. At $250 billion, SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI is the largest acquisition involving a private target in history.
• Served as debtors’ counsel to FTX in one of the most complex bankruptcies ever, with FTX emerging from Chapter 11 under more than a $14 billion plan in which former customers and holders of FTX’s digital assets are receiving in excess of the value of their claims, and in ongoing matters.
• Advised OpenAI on a series of market-defining transactions, including with: Oracle for 4.5 GW of compute; AMD for 6 GW of GPUs,; AWS for $38 billion of compute; Google Cloud, CoreWeave for $22.4 billion of compute; and Microsoft in its landmark 2023 partnership and multiple compute transactions, including $250 billion of compute as part of the next chapter of their partnership.

• Litigation Department of the Year, 2025—New York Law Journal 
• Bankruptcy Firm of the Year, 2025—Benchmark Litigation
• Crisis Management and Government Oversight award winner, 2026—The National Law Journal
• Practice Group of the Year for six practices, leading to Firm of the Year distinction: Appellate, Banking, Fintech, M&A, Tax, and Technology, 2026—Law360
• Litigators of the Week for historic appellate victory for Argentina, 2026—Am Law Litigation Daily