Steve Kirshenbaum is a corporate lawyer counselling clients in complex strategic transactions, corporate governance matters, and other commercial issues. Steve is a former member of the firm’s seven-person Executive Committee, co- Chair of the Corporate Department and Managing Partner of the firm’s Paris office.
Steve has extensive experience advising on a wide range of domestic and international/cross-border acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures, reorganizations and other business combinations and related commercial transactions. Boards of directors and management teams also look to Steve for strategic and practical business oriented judgment across a full range of other public company, operational and general corporate activities.
He has advised clients in many different industries including manufacturing and distribution, technology, health care, entertainment and media, hospitality, farming and food production, industrial packaging, logistics, automotive, printing, insurance and financial services, building products, defense technologies, apparel and fashion, and retail sales.
Steve’s clients have included, among others, public companies such as Henry Schein, Inc., Ascena Retail Group, United Industrial Corporation, Finley Enterprises, Inc. and C&D Technologies, Inc.; European companies including The Laird Group Plc., Tyman Plc., Dealogic Plc., Allied Domecq Plc, Belron S.A., The Albert Fisher Group Plc, Bollore SE, Bull SA, Club Méditerranée S.A., Cassina S.p.A., and Mauser-Werke GmbH; as well as private equity funds and individual entrepreneurs.
Steve also has experience leading transactions in a chapter 11 reorganization context, including, among others, the sale by an Australian client of the Bonwit Teller store chain; the sale of a motion picture and video distribution company; the acquisition of three Mississippi stern-wheeler luxury cruise vessels (including the historic landmark, The Mississippi Queen); the acquisition by a German client of a manufacturer and refurbisher of industrial bulk containers; and the acquisition by a UK client of an auto-glass company with multiple locations.
Steve’s clients have characterized him to Best Lawyers in America as “smart, responsive and pragmatic” and as “one of the most talented lawyers we interact with. He understands our business and how to close a transaction effectively and efficiently”. Another major multinational European client commented that Steve “ranks up there with the very best external lawyers we have used throughout the world. He is a technical expert and strong negotiator who is very business focused and whose client service ethic is second to none.”
Steve has served on the board of directors of Ascena Retail Group (the Fortune 500 parent of seven retail fashion brands including Ann Taylor, the Loft, Lane Bryant and dressbarn), and on the boards of directors of Lawyers Alliance of New York, a not-for-profit provider of pro bono legal assistance, and the Summit Music Festival. He also chaired Practising Law Institute courses on negotiating commercial transactions and has sat on bar association committees.
Education
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Harvard Law School, J.D.
cum laude
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Cornell University, B.A.
summa cum laude
Phi Beta Kappa
Admissions & Qualifications
- New York
Court Admissions
- U.S. District Court, New York, Eastern District
- U.S. District Court, New York, Southern District
Awards & Recognition
Chambers USA: Corporate/M&A
Best Lawyers in America
New York Super Lawyers
The Legal 500 United States: Mergers & Acquisitions: National Firms: Large Deals
Acritas Star Lawyer