Leadership changes at Willkie Farr & Gallagher as veteran chairman retires

Leadership changes at Willkie Farr & Gallagher as veteran chairman retires

The outgoing Steven Gartner will be replaced by Matthew Feldman, who will serve as joint chairman with Thomas Cerabino

Restructuring partner Matthew Feldman has been named at the new joint chairman of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Willkie veteran for 35 years, Steven Gartner, is due to retire at the end of this month and will be replaced by Matthew Feldman.

Feldman, who is based out of New York, will serve alongside Thomas Cerabino, who, since 2010, has led the firm with Gartner. Part of the senior leadership at Willkie during the same period, Feldman, has been serving as co-chair of business reorganization and restructuring and on the firm's executive committee.

"Willkie is an exceptionally strong institution, and this is thanks to the groundwork Steve and Tom have laid over the past decade for a bright and promising future for our firm… I intend to pick up the baton they are handing me and continue to grow and develop this place we love so much, while deepening our commitment to excellence for our clients, valuing every individual's contributions, and aiming to have a positive impact on the communities in which we live and work," said Feldman.

Part of the firm since 1991 and a partner since 1998, Feldman, in 2009 briefly left Willkie to serve in the Obama administration's task force on the auto industry as chief legal advisor. The task force was constituted during the recession to help rescue stressed car manufacturers Chrysler and General Motors. The firm, under the leadership of Gartner and Cerabino, has grown revenue by over 80 per cent, increased its lawyer headcount from 550 to 750 and expanded geographical reach. It hired in April former chairman of Jenner & Block Craig Martin and five other partners to open a Chicago office.

"Steve has been a terrific leader, lawyer, mentor, colleague and friend, and he has played a pivotal role in transforming Willkie into the firm we are today… Matt and I are already accustomed to working closely together on firm management issues so this will be a seamless transition. Like Steve and me, Matt has grown up at Willkie and he very much embodies our cultural hallmarks of transparency, entrepreneurialism and, particularly, collegiality and respect," Cerabino said.

Having joined the firm as a summer associate in 1983, Gartner's career saw him recognized as one of the leading private equity and M&A lawyers in the US. He retired back in February. "I never dreamed I would have such a long and successful career in such a special firm. There is no place I would have rather been for the past nearly four decades… I am proud of all we have accomplished as a firm, most recently how we have come together to support each other and our clients during the ongoing pandemic," Gartner said.