Sullivan & Cromwell’s relationship with Stanford Law School dates back nearly a century to 1920, when the first SLS graduate joined the Firm. Since that time, the relationship between S&C and SLS has remained strong, with more than 20 SLS alumni currently practicing at the Firm.
Based out of our offices in Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, New York, Palo Alto and Washington, D.C., S&C’s SLS alumni work in virtually all of our practice areas, including alternative investment management, antitrust, appellate litigation, bankruptcy, commercial litigation, commercial real estate, congressional investigations, criminal defense and investigations, financial services, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, project finance, securities litigation and tax. Many SLS alumni hold significant leadership roles at the Firm; three serve as managing partners and/or co-heads of our Appellate Litigation, Intellectual Property and Alternative Investment Management practices.
More SLS students seek and secure judicial clerkships than any other kind of government position, and many SLS alumni at S&C have clerked—including at the federal appellate level and on the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, several S&C alumni who attended SLS have gone on to pursue prestigious government positions, including the current chief of the Appeals Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of New Jersey and the solicitor general of California.
Many SLS alumni are actively involved in the Firm’s pro bono practice. Recent matters include obtaining asylum for a young Salvadoran woman who fled her home country after being targeted by a gang and obtaining a landmark right to legal representation for indigent immigrants with mental health issues in Franco-Gonzalez, et al. v. Holder, et al., for which the Firm received Public Counsel’s “Law Firm Pro Bono Award,” the ACLU’s “Equal Access to Justice Award,” and the American Lawyer's award for "Global Pro Bono Dispute of the Year" (2014). Partner Michael Steinberg (SLS ’86) is a member of the Firm’s Pro Bono Committee and was co-lead on the Franco-Gonzalez case.
Today, S&C continues to partner with SLS both in and out of the classroom. Litigation partners Brendan Cullen (SLS ’95) and Michael Steinberg are members of Stanford’s Board of Visitors and of the Dean’s Circle. Intellectual Property and Technology partner Nader Mousavi (SLS ’97) is a member of the advisory board for the law school’s Program in Law, Science & Technology and teaches the course "Patent and Technology Licensing." He is also a member of the Board of Visitors, and the National Chair for SLS Reunions. Jane Schacter, who teaches constitutional law, is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at SLS, an endowed professorship named for one of S&C's founding partners.
You can learn more about SLS alumni and our presence at the law school on these pages. We hope to see you on campus.