Akin Gump Acquires Prestigious Environmental Boutique
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(Washington, D.C.) - Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P. and Cutler & Stanfield, L.L.P. announced today that they will combine their practices effective November 1, 2000. The 24 Cutler & Stanfield lawyers will form the core of Akin Gump’s new environment, land use and project development practice group.
Cutler & Stanfield is one of the largest environmental and project development law firms in the United States. With offices in Denver and Washington, D.C., Cutler & Stanfield represents a wide variety of public jurisdictions and private-sector clients on environment, land use, transportation and natural resources matters.
Cutler & Stanfield’s highly regarded compliance and litigation practice focuses on large-scale development projects and other complex undertakings. The firm’s clients include Fortune 500 corporations; state, county and local governments; and other public authorities and educational institutions. The firm is especially well-known for its successes on behalf of clients involved in multibillion-dollar airport and highway development projects and difficult environmental cleanup and redevelopment programs such as the negotiating and structuring of the new Denver International Airport.
As founding partners of Cutler & Stanfield, both Eliot R. Cutler and Jeffrey L. Stanfield will join Akin Gump as partners in Washington. Mr. Stanfield will serve as firmwide practice manager of the land use and project development practice group, while Mr. Cutler will head the land use and project development practice group in Washington.
Mr. Cutler served as legislative assistant to Senator Edmund Muskie (D-ME) from 1968 to 1974 and then as counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on the Environment, during which time he helped draft the Clean Air Act, the Water Pollution Control Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Following two years of private practice in New York, Mr. Cutler returned to Washington in 1977 as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Carter administration, where he was the principal official responsible for policy and budget matters in the environmental, natural resources and energy areas until 1980. During his White House tenure, he also directed the president’s Energy Coordinating Committee and represented the United States in international summit negotiations concerning energy and environmental matters. Mr. Cutler is a graduate of Harvard College and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Mr. Stanfield served from 1979 to 1980 as associate undersecretary of the Department of Energy, where he played a key role in budget and policy formulation for the Department’s outlay programs. From 1977 to 1979 he served as the assistant to Energy Secretary James Schlesinger for regulatory matters, where he was involved in major energy regulatory and policy issues, as well as related environmental issues. He was instrumental in the drafting and enactment of much of the important federal energy and environmental legislation from 1975 to 1980, as well as in the legislative creation and organization of the Department of Energy. Mr. Stanfield is a graduate of Old Dominion University and the Vanderbilt University School of Law.
In addition to Messrs. Cutler and Stanfield, joining Akin Gump in Washington are partners Barry Conaty, Sheila D. Jones, William G. Malley and Perry M. Rosen. Partners Stephen H. Kaplan, Peter J. Kirsch and Sarah M. Rockwell will join Akin Gump in Denver; Mr. Kaplan will be in charge of Akin Gump’s Denver office. They will be joined by 15 associates and counsel in Washington and Denver.
Akin Gump has one of the most sophisticated project finance practices in the country. The firm represents lenders, developers, underwriters, pipelines, end-users, independent sovereign states, consortiums and other parties involved in environmental, cogeneration, small power production, waste-to-energy, independent power, mining, nuclear, and oil and gas pipeline projects, as well as in industrial, infrastructure, public facility and communications projects.
Cutler & Stanfield managing partner Jeffrey L. Stanfield commented, “This merger will provide our clients with a dimension that few firms enjoy: sophisticated representation of the highest quality during each and every phase of project development. Akin Gump’s practice is a perfect complement to our own, and will create extraordinary value, strength and opportunity for our clients. We look forward to joining forces.”
R. Bruce McLean, Akin Gump’s chairman, added, “Cutler & Stanfield is highly regarded for its large-scale project development expertise. Like Akin Gump, it is a first-generation firm that takes great pride in its motivated, creative and highly skilled lawyering. We are very pleased that Cutler & Stanfield has chosen to combine its practice with ours.”
“This will be a powerful combination,” founding Cutler & Stanfield partner Eliot R. Cutler said. “Together, we will make Akin Gump the law firm of choice when clients need to develop, permit and finance large and complex projects anywhere in the world.”
Richard M. Gittleman, head of Akin Gump’s project finance and infrastructure development practice, added, “These are first-class lawyers with outstanding reputations. The depth and breadth of their practice will dovetail extremely well with our existing project finance practice. Our clients will benefit greatly from the group’s significant expertise and notable experience.”
Founded in 1945, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P., a leading international law firm, numbers more than 900 lawyers with offices in Austin, Brussels, Dallas, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, New York, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Riyadh (affiliate), San Antonio and Washington. The firm has a diversified practice and represents regional, national and international clients in a wide range of areas, including antitrust; banking and financial institutions; bankruptcy, reorganization and creditors’ rights; capital markets; communications; corporate and securities; employee benefits; energy; entertainment; environmental; estate planning, wealth transfer and probate; government contracts; health; insurance; intellectual property; international; investment management; labor and employment; litigation; mergers and acquisitions; privatization; project finance; public law and policy; real estate and finance; taxation; and technology. For additional information, please visit our Web site at http://www.akingump.com.