Paris
The Paris office boasts more than 100 attorneys and regularly handles a wide range of transactions, disputes and regulatory matters on behalf of French and European companies, private equity houses and financial institutions. With attorneys qualified to practice under French, English and US law, the office was recently awarded "International Law Firm of the Year" at the Décideurs Stratégie Finance Droit's awards ceremony. The award recognized the firm's full-service capabilities in Paris and the office's involvement in many of the most high profile, market-defining deals and cases.
Our Practice
Very few law firms operating in the French market can match the depth of Latham's practice as well as the breadth of Latham's geographic platform and the robust technology that underpins its performance. Our attorneys in Paris maintain in-depth knowledge of a wide range of industries, including a robust understanding of the economic and regulatory environments in which they operate. Our core practices include: mergers and acquisitions; private equity; finance; litigation; competition and EU law; real estate; capital markets; structured finance; restructuring; tax; project finance; telecommunications; information technology; media and entertainment; intellectual property; labor and employment law; international arbitration; and environmental law.
In 2005 and 2006, our French Private Equity Practice was ranked in the top tier (Incontournable) for LBO acquisitions in France by Décideurs. Concerning the practice, the publication stated that "Latham & Watkins has the most complete team in Paris." Décideurs also honored the Paris office's Litigation Department, awarding three Trophées to the office at the 2005 Litigation Awards. The awards were given for the areas of intellectual property, trademarks and patents, international arbitration, and IT and telecommunications litigation.
Community Ties
Like the rest of the firm, Latham's Paris office has a strong and sustained commitment to pro bono. In 2005, the Paris office was instrumental in setting up the financing for a memorial sculpture built on Omaha Beach in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Normandy Landing during World War II. The sculpture, which was called Les Braves, was created by French sculptress Anilore Banon. The Paris office also represented the Lions Club Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization noted for its work in the area of blindness prevention and assistance to the visually impaired, in connection with a project to build medically tailored homers in France for disabled children.
In 2006, our Paris team helped launch an international pro bono initiative representing private individuals before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France. The ECHR, created under the aegis of the Council of Europe, receives approximately 20,000 new cases annually involving the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms such as right to life, fair trial before civil and criminal courts, freedom of expression, property rights and freedom from discrimination and torture. Within the City of Paris itself, the Paris office regularly supports Droits d'Urgence, a nonprofit association whose purpose is to provide free legal assistance to underprivileged people, primarily in relation to civil rights protections.
The Paris office has also been providing legal services to Ashoka in France, advising the non profit organization, which identifies and invests in social entrepreneurs, on setting up a French non profit association loi de 1901.