Top Wall Street firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom has named corporate lawyer Jeremy London as its next executive partner. 

London will take over next April from incumbent Eric Friedman, who has served in the role since 2008. As executive partner London will take primary responsibility for the direction and development of Skadden, which last year pulled in just north of $3bn in revenue, putting it in fifth place in The American Lawyer’s 2023 Am Law 200 ranking. 

A corporate partner in Skadden’s Washington DC office, London started his career at the firm as a summer associate in 1996. Alongside his transactional practice, which has seen him advise clients including Centene, Amerigroup and Duke Energy in multi-billion dollar M&A deals, he has held a number of leadership positions at Skadden, including his current role overseeing the firm’s global client intake and conflict processes as chair of the client engagement committee. Earlier he also served on the firm’s partner compensation committee. 

“Jeremy is an outstanding lawyer, highly capable leader and trusted colleague who embodies our firm’s core values, including our commitment to superior client service,” said Friedman. “The partnership has made an excellent choice in selecting Jeremy as our next executive partner, and I am certain that under his stewardship Skadden will continue to thrive as one of the world’s leading law firms.”

Prior to becoming executive partner, New York-based Friedman handled significant M&A and corporate transactions for clients including Citigroup, Nasdaq, Deutsche Bank and Mars. Under his leadership Skadden in 2015 became the first law firm to handle more than $1trn in global announced M&A deals in a single year, ranking first by value globally and in the US. 

The firm regularly features in the upper echelons of the global M&A deals tables thanks to its powerhouse practices both in New York and London, where last summer it lured corporate partner Robert Chaplin from Slaughter and May in a rare partner-level departure from the highly profitable Magic Circle UK firm.

Friedman is only the third executive partner in Skadden’s 75-year history after Robert Sheehan and Peter Mullen, the latter of whom officially became the firm’s first executive partner in 1981 and is credited with becoming a key architect of the firm’s global growth, including overseeing the launch of its first international offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing and Moscow. 

“I am honored to step into this role next April, and I look forward to working with Eric during the transition period and with all of my partners to best serve our clients, support our colleagues and position them for success, and continue to attract the top talent in the legal industry,” London said.

In April, Skadden promoted 24 attorneys to its tightly managed partnership, an increase of 26% from last year.