Sidley has been ranked No. 1 for company-side legal advisers in Bloomberg’s Global Activism League Tables for H1 2025 — both in North America and globally. Bloomberg has ranked Sidley the No. 1 legal adviser for activism defense in North America for more than five years.
For H1 2025, Bloomberg ranked Sidley No. 1 for the total number of defended companies (32). Sidley was ranked No. 1 across the market capitalization spectrum – both for larger companies (market cap above US$1 billion) and for smaller companies (market cap below US$1 billion). Bloomberg also ranked Sidley the No. 1 legal adviser for activism defense in the consumer discretionary and financial industries.
A link to the full league tables is here.
The Bloomberg rankings follow Sidley’s Band 1 ranking in Chambers USA in Corporate/M&A: Takeover Defense, which stated that “Sidley Austin is the best in the business at activism defense work.” Similarly, Legal 500 has ranked Sidley in Tier 1 for Shareholder Activism — Advice to Boards, calling Sidley’s Shareholder Activism co-chairs Kai Liekefett and Derek Zaba “two of the best lawyers in America.” Sidley has also been ranked No. 1 in the shareholder activism defense league tables by FactSet, Diligent, and LSEG for company-side engagements in the past three years.
In the past five years, Sidley has represented companies in approximately 150 proxy contests, several hundred activist campaigns, and dozens of settlements — more than any other legal defense practice in the world.
