Shearman & Sterling was founded in New York City in 1873 by Thomas Shearman (/ˈʃɜːrmən/) and John William Sterling, who concentrated on litigation and transactional matters respectively. The young firm represented financier Jay Gould and industrialist Henry Ford, and cultivated a number of important business ties that would evolve into long-standing client relationships, such as with the Rockefeller family and the predecessor banks to Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.[3]
The firm expanded internationally during the post-World War II era, under the direction of Boykin C. Wright, a senior partner who joined the firm from Cahill Gordon & Reindel with a group of lawyers, briefly leading the firm to add his name to the letterhead.[4] The firm's first international office was established in Paris in 1963.[5]
Bolstering the firm's reputation in international law, President Eisenhower tapped partner Fredrick McCurdy Eaton to be the United States' lead negotiator at the 1960 Nuclear Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament,[6] in Geneva. From 1964 to 1975, Mr. Eaton was the senior partner.
In postwar Germany, Shearman & Sterling helped German companies such as Siemens and BASF restructure their debts and re-emerge as credible exporters to the United States. The firm's lawyers assisted Daimler in its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993, the first such listing by a German company, prompting other major companies to follow suit.[7] The firm then represented the German automaker in its purchase and subsequent sale of Chrysler.[8]
The company practices mergers and acquisitions in Germany, and operates one of the largest London offices of a non-UK law firm.[9]
The firm played an important role in the establishment of state-owned oil and gas companies, including Sonatrach in Algeria and throughout the Middle East. In 1979, Shearman & Sterling lawyers represented Citibank during the intense negotiations that ensued during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, after the US government froze all Iranian assets in US banks.[10]
During the 1980s, firm attorneys helped restructure the debts of many Latin American nations in the Brady transactions, and also won mandates in the privatization of numerous state-owned entities. In 2004, the firm launched an office in São Paulo, Brazil and has since represented Brazilian companies in a number of important transactions.[11]
In East Asia, Shearman & Sterling was one of the first firms to grasp the future strategic importance of the Asia-Pacific region, establishing offices in Hong Kong in 1978, followed by Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore and Shanghai.[12] In late 2018, the firm received a license to open an office in Seoul, headed by Singapore partner Anna Chung.[13]
Domestically, Shearman & Sterling opened up an office in Austin in the first half of 2018 and another office in Houston just two months later.[14][15]
On May 21, 2023, it was announced that Shearman & Sterling had agreed to terms in a merger with UK Magic Circle member Allen & Overy, creating a megafirm estimated to have over 4,000 attorneys across 49 offices. The combined firm will be known as A&O Shearman.[16]
Among Shearman & Sterling's East Asian clients is the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, which (under the control of Jho Low) had wired $368 million from a Swiss bank to the firm's trust account to pay for, among other things, a Beverly Hills hotel, private plane and yacht rentals, and the production of the film The Wolf of Wall Street. Shearman & Sterling was named in a series of civil complaints filed by the DOJ "for having provided a trust account through which hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to Malaysia’s 1MDB fund were illicitly siphoned."[33] However, the report added that neither Shearman nor any of its lawyers are accused of wrongdoing.
Shearman & Sterling has attained recognition in a number of legal publications and industry rankings for its work in the United States and internationally across a range of practices areas, including: dispute resolution/litigation, international arbitration, project finance, public international law, capital markets, and mergers and acquisitions.[34][35]
John McCarthy, former associate (1966–1967), and former Australian ambassador to various countries including Vietnam, Mexico, the United States and Japan.