Adam O. Emmerich practices in Wachtell Lipton’s corporate department, focusing primarily on mergers and acquisitions, securities law matters, and corporate governance. His practice has included a broad and varied representation of public and private corporations and other entities in a variety of industries throughout the United States and abroad in connection with mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, joint ventures, and financing transactions. He also has extensive experience in takeover defense. Adam is recognized as one of the 500 leading lawyers in America by Lawdragon, as one of the world’s leading lawyers in the field of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Chambers guide to the world’s leading lawyers, as an expert in each of M&A, Corporate Governance and M&A in the real estate field by Who’s Who Legal?, and as an expert both in M&A and in Corporate Governance by Euromoney Institutional Investor’s Guides, respectively, to the World’s Leading Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Governance Lawyers.

Among the transactions in which he has taken a leading role are representing: Deutsche Telekom in its $39 billion sale of T-Mobile to AT&T; AMB Property Corporation in its $15 billion merger with ProLogis, to create a REIT with combined assets owned and under management of $46 billion; Grupo Prisa in its $1.5 billion transaction with Liberty Acquisition; the board of Wyeth in its $68 billion acquisition by Pfizer; Simon Property Group in connection with its offer to acquire General Growth Properties for $31 billion; Swarth Investments in the sale of its controlling interest in GVT (Holding) SA, Brazil to Vivendi in a transaction valuing GVT at $4.2 billion; Alcoa in the $14 billion investment in Rio Tinto by Chinalco and Alcoa; the $4.7 billion acquisition of Constellation Energy by MidAmerican Energy; Iscar in its $5 billion acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway, and Iscar in its $1 billion acquisition of Tungaloy of Japan; Acciona in its €43.7 billion acquisition with Enel of Endesa and in relation to EON’s offer for Endesa; Tishman-Speyer and Lehman Brothers in their $22.2 billion acquisition of Archstone-Smith; Vornado, Starwood Capital and Walton Street in their $39 billion bid to buy Equity Office Properties; Man Group’s purchase of Refco’s regulated futures business in Refco’ s bankruptcy proceeding; Taubman Centers’, Dana’s and Circuit City’s successful defences of hostile takeover attempts by Simon Property Group, ArvinMeritor and Highfields Capital, respectively; the acquisition by Wal-Mart of an interest in Seiyu in Japan and in transactions in Brazil, China, Puerto Rico and the UK; MacAndrews & Forbes in its recapitalisation of Revlon; Cable & Wireless in its exit from its US activities; the successful $6 billion unsolicited offer by Public Storage for Shurgard; the Mills in its $7.8 billion sale to a partnership of Simon Property Group and Farallon; the acquisition by Morgan Stanley and Onex of Town & Country; Lend Lease in the sale of its US businesses; MetLife in a variety of transactions; the acquisition by Raytheon of the defence business of Hughes Electronics from GM, and Raytheon’s acquisition of Texas Instruments defence business and sale of its Amana appliance unit; the Cisneros family of Venezuela in transactions with Coca-Cola and Bell South; Seagram/Universal’s acquisition of Viacom’s interest in USA Network; and MCA’s sale to Matsushita.

Adam joined the firm in 1986 and was named a partner in 1991. He attended Swarthmore College and The University of Chicago, from which he received his J.D. with honors. While at the University of Chicago, Adam served as Topics and Comments Editor of The University of Chicago Law Review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and received an Olin Fellowship in law and economics. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Abner J. Mikva, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is a frequent author and speaker on topics relating to mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance, including at MIT’s Sloan Convocation and on India’s CNBC-TV18.

Adam is co-chair of the International Institute for the Study of Cross-Border M&A, co-chair of the advisory board of New York University's REIT Center for the Study of Public Real Estate Companies and has served as co-chair of the NYU Real Estate Institute's Annual Symposium on REITs for the last 16 years. He is a member of the Corporate Academic Bridge Group of the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business, and a frequent guest contributor to the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. Adam serves on the board of directors of the American Friends of the Israel Museum and of the Ramaz School, as well as serving as president of the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority and of the Friends of Rambam Medical Center. He has previously served on the board of directors of the Lawyers Alliance for New York, the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School, and as co-chair of the Young Lawyers Division of the UJA-Federation in New York.

Adam lives in Manhattan with his wife, two daughters and son.