Kaye Scholer Announces 2012 Leadership Changes
For first time in firm’s 95-year-history, Managing Partner not from New York
New York — For the first time since its 1917 founding, Kaye Scholer’s Managing Partner does not reside in New York. After co-heading the firm with New York litigator Barry Willner for the past two years, Chicago bankruptcy partner Michael Solow assumed sole leadership of the firm on January 1.
The firm also has elected two new partners to its Executive Committee, Vincent Sama (Litigation/NY) and Thomas Stromberg (Corporate/LA), and re-elected Gary Gartner (Tax/NY) for a second term. Arthur Brown (Litigation/NY), Alan Fisch (Intellectual Property/DC), Stephen Gliatta (Real Estate/NY), who co-heads the Committee with Solow, round out the Executive Committee team.
“With a firm as established and successful as Kaye Scholer, it’s very tempting to maintain the status quo and keep doing what we have always done,” said Solow, when asked about some of his primary goals. “But we need to be managing for the firm’s second century. Clients have long valued us not just as their legal advisors, but as strategic partners who can quickly and effectively prioritize the most challenging aspects of an issue or opportunity and come up with viable, actionable steps to ensure our clients’ competitive edge. We need to invest that same level of dedication and proactive focus on behalf of Kaye Scholer itself.”
As for being the first Managing Partner whose home office is outside of New York, Solow says that is part of the firm’s natural evolution. “Kaye Scholer started out as a New York firm, but subsequently emerged as one that serves clients based throughout the US and around the world,” said Solow. “Our DC and West Palm Beach offices are more than 30 years old, we’ve been in China and Los Angeles since the 1980s, and opened a second California office two years ago in Palo Alto. Both our Chicago and London offices celebrated their 10th anniversaries in 2011, and Frankfurt will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this year. That the partnership opted to elect a Managing Partner from Chicago merely reflects who and what the firm is today.”
