Latham Named Finalist for Multiple Honors in Financial Times Innovative Lawyers — North America Awards

Latham & Watkins is a finalist for Most Innovative Firm in North America in the annual Financial Times Innovative Lawyers North America awards, which honors law firms and lawyers at the cutting edge of the legal industry. The award is based on a cumulative score derived from nominations and survey responses, reflecting Latham’s market leadership in legal practice, uses of technology, people policies, social responsibility, and financial growth.

In addition to the firm award, Latham innovators have been shortlisted in seven categories:

• Innovative Practitioner — Stelios Saffos, Global Chair of Latham’s Capital Markets and Public Company Representation Practices and Global Chair of the Hybrid Capital Practice, was recognized as a pioneer in the exponentially growing hybrid capital and private debt markets, as well as helping to build Latham’s dominant, fully-integrated Private Capital Practice around the globe.
• Intrapreneur — Keith Halverstam, Global Vice Chair of the firm’s Corporate Department and Global Chair of the Public Company & Board Representation Practice, for marshalling resources within the firm to integrate generative artificial intelligence into Latham’s public company platform, including through Latham’s proprietary 8-K Trigger Analysis Tool.
• Innovation in Digital Tools — Latham’s 8-K Trigger Analysis Tool, developed and utilized by lawyers in the Public Company & Board Representation Practice. The tool examines fact patterns and surfaces relevant SEC guidance to analyze if a public company event requires a Form 8-K to be filed or furnished.
• Innovative Lawyers in Disputes and Litigation — A case team led by Litigation & Trial partners Alli Stillman and Sy Damle successfully defended Spotify in a novel federal lawsuit involving the interpretation of a regulation that governs every music streaming company in the US.
• Innovative Lawyers in Unlocking Capital — A Capital Markets team led by Greg Rodgers, Global Vice Chair of the Corporate Department, and partners Brittany Ruiz, Arash Aminian Baghai, and Bora Bozkurt, represented Strategy ^₿, the world’s first and largest Bitcoin treasury company, in a groundbreaking US$1 billion IPO of Series A perpetual Stride Preferred Stock, and facilitating more than US$30 billion in novel preferred stock IPOs since February, which exemplifies the firm’s trailblazing work in the emerging market of bitcoin treasuries.
• Innovative Lawyers in Unlocking Capital — A multidisciplinary Latham team led by partners Nadia Sager, Lewis Kneib, and Julian Kleindorfer represented Lineage, Inc., the world’s largest global temperature-controlled warehouse REIT, in its US$4.4 billion IPO, the largest IPO of 2024 and the largest REIT IPO in history.
• Innovative Lawyers in Pro Bono ­— A Supreme Court & Appellate Practice team led by Litigation & Trial partner Roman Martinez secured a landmark Supreme Court ruling in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, overturning a longstanding rule requiring children with disabilities fighting discrimination at school to satisfy a uniquely stringent “bad faith or gross misjudgment” liability standard, and making it easier for children and their families to prove discrimination and seek relief.