Gibson Dunn offers lawyers an unparalleled opportunity to build an exceptional career and to learn from some of the brightest minds in the legal profession. At Gibson Dunn, you will have the resources and prestige that come with being part of one of the world's premier law firms.
CULTURE: From one practice group to another, from one generation to the next, we operate as a single, unified law firm in practice and culture. Gibson Dunn is a full-service global law firm, with more than 1,900 lawyers in 21 offices worldwide. We have locations in Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Riyadh, San Francisco, Singapore, and Washington, D.C. The Firm is governed by committees whose membership is drawn from all offices. Our culture still maintains the values established upon our founding in 1890 -- a collegial workplace based on friendship and mutual respect, a dedication to recruiting only the finest lawyers, and a commitment to providing service of the highest quality to our clients. For that reason, Gibson Dunn is the only firm that ranks in the top 10 for both Prestige and Quality of Life/Best Places to Work in the Vault Associate Survey Rankings.
CUTTING-EDGE WORK: Gibson Dunn consistently ranks among the top law firms in the world. Lawyers in all of our offices are routinely sought out by clients for the extensive experience they bring to their respective practice areas, and for their rich and varied professional backgrounds. The American Lawyer ranked Gibson Dunn on its most prestigious survey, the 2023 A-List, an annual ranking of firms based on “revenue per lawyer, pro bono work, associate satisfaction, racial diversity and gender diversity among the partnership.”
Gibson Dunn receives accolades annually across an incredible breadth of practices. Chambers USA 2023 ranked Gibson Dunn in Band 1 nationwide for Antitrust, Appellate, Corporate Investigations, FCA, FCPA, International Arbitration, Outsourcing, Privacy, Projects, Real Estate, Securities Litigation, and Regulation. Law360 named Gibson Dunn a 2023 Firm of the Year, recognizing seven Practice Groups of the Year (Appellate, Competition, L&E, Energy, IP, International Arbitration, Securities). Finally, The Best Lawyers in America© 2023 recognized 191 Gibson Dunn lawyers in 58 practice areas.
The Firm is acclaimed for its multi-faceted transactional work and plays a major role in a wide variety of U.S. and global matters. Our transactional lawyers have experience with virtually every type of commercial transaction, including deep capabilities in public and private company mergers, divestitures and spin-offs, IPOs, equity and debt offerings, and bank finance. We also counsel clients on real estate development and finance, infrastructure and energy projects, tax matters and offers comprehensive capabilities in private equity investments, leveraged buyouts and restructurings, and acquisitions out of bankruptcy. We take this collective expertise, gained from handling the most complex matters for the world's pre-eminent companies and financial institutions, and make it available to every client, regardless of size. The 2022 edition of IFLR1000, a guide to the world’s leading financial law firms, recognized Gibson Dunn in multiple U.S. categories, as well as internationally.
We are renowned for our litigation practice, which regularly takes on the most challenging assignments for clients, delivering an array of notable successes. The American Lawyer has awarded Gibson Dunn General Litigation Department of the year four times, an unprecedented feat for the biennial competition. In addition, Benchmark Litigation US 2024 recognized Gibson Dunn in eight U.S. litigation practice areas, named 80 partners as Litigation Stars and Future Stars across the U.S. and named Gibson Dunn Appellate Firm of the Year. Our litigators are experienced in U.S. state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels, handling almost every imaginable area of controversy in every court in the country. Our teams boast former high-ranking Federal prosecutors and many former government officials from the Federal, State and City levels. Many of our litigators have been recognized as leaders in their fields including by Chambers USA, The American Lawyer, The Best Lawyers in America, New York Magazine's "Best New York Lawyers," Lawdragon.com, The Legal 500, Law360 and The National Law Journal.
PALO ALTO: Our Palo Alto office matches the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley by providing creative, cutting-edge solutions and advice on corporate, intellectual property, litigation, internal investigations, enforcement, strategic sourcing, data privacy and executive compensation matters. Our lawyers provide a full range of legal services and support to emerging technology companies, private equity/venture capital funds, investment banks and lenders on tech sector investment, financing and M&A transactions. We also regularly advise management teams and in-house counsel on a range of complex transactions, including private equity deals, venture capital investments, joint ventures, technology transactions, collaboration agreements and public and private securities offerings. Our Palo Alto team advises publicly traded and privately held companies, including some of the world’s premier tech firms, on high-profile, cross-border acquisitions and divestitures, including all aspects of friendly and hostile takeovers. Our litigation team includes specialists in intellectual property, trade secret and securities litigation, privacy and cybersecurity, and white collar and enforcement matters.
FREEDOM TO BUILD YOUR PRACTICE: At Gibson Dunn, we believe in granting attorneys agency in the development of their own careers. The culture of respect and professionalism that we hold as a paramount virtue of Gibson Dunn empowers attorneys at every level to form those mentoring relationships and networks that are key to a successful and satisfying career. The Firm’s Free Market System is a work allocation model in which attorneys are not forced into a particular practice group or area but instead are granted the freedom and responsibility to chart their own long-term course. It encourages associates to seek out meaningful opportunities on interesting matters with partners they admire. As a result, junior associates have the ability to build their legal skills, interact with clients, and obtain significant responsibility early in their careers. New associates choose to start in one of our four main departments but have the flexibility to rotate through others (if they wish) over their first two years at the firm, enabling them to make an informed choice about the direction of their practice. When coupled with our “one-firm” philosophy, which results in substantial cross-office work and collaboration, our culture and the Free Market System allow our attorneys an unparalleled opportunity to shape their own careers.
TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT: At Gibson Dunn, we know that associate training contributes to the quality of our lawyers and to their career satisfaction. Comprehensive training is provided at all stages of associate development and includes a three-day academy retreat that gathers together all the Firm’s newest attorneys (of all levels) and introduces them to the Firm's practices, philosophies, policies, management and resources. New associates are also placed in cross-office POD groups, fostering relationships across offices and departments. In addition, our mid-level attorneys from every office attend a three-day academy that fosters cross-office connections and offers training to prepare them to move into senior-level roles. Globally, Gibson Dunn has a dedicated Professional Development department that offers training and career coaching for all attorneys.
PRO BONO: Gibson Dunn has a tradition of service and strongly believes in the importance of positively impacting the communities in which we practice. Our attorneys receive one-to-one billable hour credit for Pro Bono work because we believe it adds an important dimension to the development of our attorneys. Through projects initiated by committed associates and partners and partnerships with the many public interest organizations with which we have relationships, our attorneys are encouraged and able to leverage the resources of a premier, global law firm to make positive change in the world. Our work over the last year has included matters brought on behalf of the immigrant community (particularly Afghan and Ukrainian refugees), veterans, the elderly, domestic violence victims, and human trafficking victims. We have also brought groundbreaking social justice impact litigation and have filed cases advocating on behalf of civil liberties, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights– to name a few.
In 2023, Gibson Dunn attorneys dedicated approximately 165,000 hours to pro bono projects, and far exceeded the Firm’s goal of having every attorney devote an average of 60 or more hours to pro bono work each year. Over the past few years, we have received recognition from our partners at and other organizations, including the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Federal Bar Council, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), the Legal Aid Society, the Houston Bar Association, and TrustLaw. We have also been heavily involved in legal relief and asylum efforts arising out of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, including co-founding the Welcome Legal Alliance (a nationwide coalition of law firms, in-house legal teams, resettlement agencies, legal aid organizations, and other nonprofits to ensure Afghans resettling in the United States have access to pro bono legal services), the refugee crisis following the war in Ukraine, and, more recently, the refugee crisis out of Venezuela. Additionally, we have doubled-down on racial justice and equity efforts in our communities. Among other activities, we have promoted police reform and criminal justice reform, defended the rights of peaceful protesters in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, and represented individual victims of anti-AAPI hate while being a co-founder of the Alliance for Asian American Justice. Most recently, the Firm achieved a historic federal victory against the LAPD on behalf of a protestor who was shot in the face with a rubber bullet in the wake of the George Floyd murder.
DIVERSITY: The recruitment, retention and promotion of attorneys of diverse viewpoints and backgrounds are top priorities of Gibson Dunn. We believe diversity and inclusion in our work place creates a more vibrant and stimulating environment for everyone at our Firm regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. We offer 20 attorney affinity groups, open to all, and held 360+ DEI-related programs over 2023. There is always more work to do and we embrace the challenge!
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GD&C's Non-U.S. Offices: Abu Dhabi (8), Beijing (5), Brussels (14), Dubai (16), Frankfurt (25), Hong Kong (39), London (158), Munich (32), Paris (50), Riyadh (15), and Singapore (29)
Lawyer Demographics: Ethnicity and LGBT figures are U.S. only
