Cadwalader Ranked Among the Top 25 Most Innovative Law Firms by the 2012 Financial Times US Innovative Lawyers Report

November 29, 2012

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, a leading advisor to corporations and financial institutions, ranked among the top 25 Most Innovative Law Firms in the Financial Times US Innovative Lawyers 2012 report released today. In a discussion with the publication, Cadwalader Chairman Chris White noted that, given the nature of the financial crisis, CEOs are relying more on lawyers, giving the legal profession an opportunity to innovate.

Cadwalader also ranked as a highly commended firm in Finance for use of legal challenges to force power company Dynegy to abandon an aggressive restructuring plan and in Energy for advising American Renewables on one of the largest biomass financings, which was negotiated to take into account a different and variable risk profile while also coping with changes in the law.

The FT’s Innovative Lawyers project breaks with traditional methods of fees and profits as the measure of success. The FT and its research partner RSG Consulting use a bespoke methodology to rank lawyers on innovation. For the FT US Innovative Lawyers 2012 report, 320 submissions were received and more than 400 telephone interviews with senior lawyers and C-suite executives conducted to arrive at the final rankings. The entries were scored out of 10 points on originality, rationale and impact, and benchmarked against each other to arrive at the final rankings. The research was conducted by a team of six RSG researchers between September and November 2012.