A&O Shearman is an elite transatlantic firm formed in May 2024 from the merger of Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling, with London serving as a key hub housing 200+ partners. The UK team is widely recognised for market-leading finance and capital markets capability, alongside complex cross-border corporate/M&A. The firm acts for blue-chip corporates, financial institutions and private equity firms on multi-jurisdictional mandates, leveraging an integrated UK–US platform.  

Highlights

The firm has a strong practice across the rankings in the UK achieving tier 1 status in multiple sectors including in M&A, financial services regulatory, project development and capital markets. 

Testimonials

“Professional, customer orientated and knowledgeable people.” - Bank lending: Borrower side

"They are client oriented and always have innovative solutions to the questions raised by our team" - Capital markets: Debt

“Their technical expertise, knowledge of the client and how we like to interact; availability of the partner in charge; responsiveness.” - Capital markets: Debt

“The team we work with, headed by Theo Trayhurn, has a high level understanding of the market with a helicopter view of what players in the market are doing and future trends. Theo and his team have a very good commercial sense and work pragmatically to find solutions, also across various jurisdictions. They work really well together as a team. The lawyers communicate well, are incredibly responsive, and absolute top professionals.”

“A&O service is top notch (from response time to user experience and understanding the various needs to make everything easy to understand).” - Capital markets: Debt

“Excellent technical and product knowledge.  Close market intelligence and commercial approach.” - Capital markets: Structured finance and securitisation

“Excellent technical knowledge and insight into the market.  A deep bench with true industry experts.” - Capital markets: Structured finance and securitisation

“Ease of dealing with them.  Knowledge of and good relationship with partner contacts.” - Capital markets: Structured finance and securitisation

“As this product is highly structured, the client often has bespoke requests. A&O are able to provide commercial solutions to the client's bespoke requests.” - Capital markets: Structured finance and securitisation

“Always very rounded, commercial advice with elevated attention to detail, even on repeat transactions. Partners are available and plugged into all layers of a transaction, at appropriate levels. Full suite of advice available at short notice.” - Capital markets: Structured finance and securitisation".

“Sirae Chen has strong relationship management skills and presents high quality work.” 

“Jamie Durham is a skilled practitioner and is very approachable."

“Tanya O'Hagan is top class.  Always available to chat, great technical and industry knowledge. Excellent pragmatic, commercial approach. Tanya is very hands on and is able to provide commercial solutions in response to the requirements of our clients. She is also very friendly and easy to deal with.”

“Sally Onions has fantastic industry knowledge, client relationship skills and knowledge of our business. Her sector knowledge is stand-out excellent. You can cold call her and ask her anything securitisation related and she'll not just know the answer but know most recent developments/potential changes as well. She's approachable, organised and very commercial too.”