Debevoise & Plimpton LLP (often shortened to Debevoise) is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1931 by Eli Whitney Debevoise and William Stevenson, the firm was originally named “Debevoise, Plimpton & McLean”. Debevoise specializes in private equity, financial services transactions, private funds, and international arbitration. In 2021, the firm assisted the Democratic Party in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Overview
Debevoise & Plimpton currently employs approximately 769 lawyers in nine offices throughout the world. The firm divides its practices into three major areas: Corporate, Litigation, and Tax. Debevoise & Plimpton has offices across many locations, including New York City, Washington D.C., London, Moscow, Shanghai and Tokyo.
Debevoise is the only law firm in the world to have both a former US and UK Attorney-General simultaneously as partners (Michael Mukasey in the U.S. and Lord Goldsmith KC in the U.K.).
Reputation and rankings
Debevoise & Plimpton is ranked No. 9 on The American Lawyer's 2022 A-List; and No. 18 on Vault's 2024 Rankings of the most prestigious law firms. It is consistently among the most profitable large law firms in the world on a per-partner and per-lawyer basis according to American Lawyer magazine's annual AmLaw 100 Survey. Debevoise was placed overall No. 1 in The American Lawyer's "10-Year A-List," a ranking of the law firms who have earned the highest cumulative score on the A-List since its inception in 2003. The annual A-List ranks firms according to their performance in four categories: revenue per lawyer, pro bono service, associate satisfaction, and diversity.
Controversial Cases
Representation of the family that controls Purdue Pharma
Debevoise represented four members of the Sackler family, which controls Purdue Pharma, the company that developed and marketed the painkiller Oxycontin. Purdue, along with other opioid makers, faced over 2,000 suits in 2019 by state, city, and county officials who blame prescription opiates for the death of thousands of Americans in the opioid epidemic. For its legal work amid the opioid scandal, Purdue Pharma paid Debevoise the majority of its legal spend: more than $11.4 million out of a total of more than $17.5 million.
Assistance to Guantanamo prisoners
Attorneys from Debevoise & Plimpton worked on behalf of prisoners held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Jeff Lang, of Debevoise & Plimpton, was one of the first Guantanamo Bay attorneys to file an appeal in the Federal appeal court in Washington DC of prisoners' Combatant Status Review Tribunal proceedings. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 included provision for prisoners to challenge whether the Tribunals' decisions complied with the Tribunal's mandate. Charles "Cully" Stimson, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, stirred controversy when he went on record criticizing the patriotism of law firms that allowed employees to assist Guantanamo prisoners: "corporate CEOs seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists." Stimson's views were widely criticized. The Pentagon disavowed them, and Stimson resigned shortly thereafter.
2010s
Take-Two Interactive Software, in defense of lawsuit filed by actress Lindsay Lohan, which claimed that Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games was in breach of her image rights, as basing its Grand Theft Auto V "Lacey Jonas" character on Lohan without her consent, citing similarities. The case was dismissed on September 1, 2016, then dismissed on Appeal, on March 29, 2018.