2025 Sector Outlooks and Client Highlights
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Dechert advises the most successful asset managers, financial institutions and corporations on issues critical to managing their business and their capital. Explore sector outlooks and key matter highlights for Financial Services, Private Equity, Private Credit, Real Estate, Technology and Life Sciences clients, and learn more about the firm’s investments in people, innovation and pro bono work.
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Life Sciences
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Technology
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Real Estate
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Private Credit
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Private Equity
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FINANCIAL SERVICES
2025 Sector OUTLOOKs
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Dechert advised Lexmark International and its investors, Ninestar Corporation, PAG Asia Capital and Shanghai Shouda Investment Centre, in Lexmark’s US$1.5 billion acquisition by Xerox Holdings Corporation. The acquisition will enhance Xerox’s print portfolio and expand its global print and managed print services to meet the evolving needs of clients in the hybrid workplace.
Dechert advised Bank of America and Wells Fargo, as co-lead lenders, on the US$3.5 billion refinancing of Manhattan's iconic Rockefeller Center. The loan represented the largest CMBS transaction since 2022 and largest CMBS loan for a single office property on record. Dechert also acted as issuer's counsel for the loan's securitization.
Real Estate
Dechert represented Microsoft senior executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, to testify as a third party in support of DOJ in the U.S. government’s antitrust case alleging Google engaged in anticompetitive behavior to create and protect a monopoly in search. Dechert drove strategy during third-party discovery and oversaw the preparation and defense of numerous Microsoft executives at deposition and trial. Dechert also represents Microsoft division Nuance Communications in 10 class actions. Nuance relied on third-party software for secure file storage and transfer, which cybercriminals exploited in the largest data breach of 2023.
Technology
Dechert represented Prisma Labs, Inc., the developer of photo-editing app Lensa AI, in one of the largest Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) class actions ever proposed, which sought to represent any Illinois resident who had ever had a photo of themselves uploaded on the Internet. The plaintiffs, seeking billions of dollars in damages, claimed Prisma scraped the Internet for photos to train the AI model, violating BIPA. The judge granted Dechert’s motion to dismiss for lack of Article III standing and lack of personal jurisdiction.
Technology
Dechert represents GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as national counsel in multidistrict and state-court mass tort litigation across numerous jurisdictions. Plaintiffs allege GSK’s discontinued heartburn medication Zantac caused cancer. In California, Dechert led pretrial motions, strategy and negotiations, resulting in confidential settlements in the first cases set for trial. In Illinois, Dechert played a key supporting role in the first Zantac case to go to trial nationwide, resulting in a defense verdict in May 2024. The firm reprised its role in a second case, securing another defense verdict in August 2024. Dechert also led extensive negotiations that culminated in GSK’s settlement of 93% of Zantac state court product liability cases (approximately 80,000 cases) in October 2024. Dechert continues to be GSK’s national counsel for the remaining Zantac cases.
Life Sciences
Dechert advised global private markets investment firm StepStone Group on the European parallel fund close of StepStone Secondary Opportunities Fund V, L.P. (SSOF V) and its separate related accounts (together, Fund V) with US$7.4 billion of capital commitments. SSOF V, with US$4.8 billion in total capital commitments, more than doubled the size of its predecessor fund. This fundraising leverages StepStone’s broader platform to use its sponsor relationships, differentiated data and information access to create opportunities that may generate strong risk-adjusted returns.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Dechert advised Ares Funds on a £500 million preferred equity investment from a consortium led by Searchlight Capital Partners and Ares for environmental consultancy RSK Group, and the commitment of an incremental £300 million debt facility to RSK. Total debt facilities provided by Ares amounted to £1.4 billion.
Private Credit
Dechert advised KKR on its take-private of mdf commerce, a SaaS leader in digital commerce technologies. The acquisition was made by KKR's landmark US$4.6 billion Ascendant fund, its first fund dedicated to investing in the North American middle market.
Private Equity
Dechert advised the ad hoc group of secured lenders to Tupperware Brands Corporation in connection with the Chapter 11 case of Tupperware Brands and its subsidiaries filed in Wilmington, Delaware. Dechert advised the ad hoc group, among other things, in connection with the acquisition of global rights to the Tupperware brand, intellectual property and operations in key markets pursuant to a sale authorized under section 363 by the Delaware Bankruptcy Court.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Client Highlights
4 of the top 5
Pharmaceutical companies in the world are clients
350+
Private equity and private investment clients
9 of the top 10
Investment banks represented on warehouse and asset-based financings
50
CLO managers are clients, more than any other law firm
10 of the top 10
Global asset management firms are clients
700+
Private fund and fund management group clients
Dechert by the Numbers
Inclusion Innovator of the Year
Recognized at the Legal Benchmarking Group Social Impact Awards EMEA 2024
Great Place to Work
Seventh consecutive year certified in the U.S. as a Great Place to Work
Most Innovative Law Firm
More lawyers ranked by the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards in North America than any other firm
Pro Bono Leader
Ranked #1 internationally by The American Lawyer Pro Bono Scorecard 2024
Top-Ranked Law Firm
Ranked across 46 capabilities in Chambers Global 2024
OUR RECOGNITION
Pro Bono
Innovation and AI
Pro Bono
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Each matter requires a unique blend of experience, skills, creativity and judgment.
Dechert advised long-standing community partner UnLtd on the creation of the Growth Impact Fund, a first-of-its-kind social investment fund that supports social entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds to overcome obstacles to fundraising.
The fund focuses its investments on diverse-led social enterprises tackling poverty and inequality in the UK. Launched in January 2023, the £25 million (US$32 million) fund has already extended support to social enterprises such as Harry Specters, a chocolate maker employing young people with autism, and Kalda, an app providing self-guided therapy for LGBTQ+ people.
Our corporate and financial services lawyers continue to act for the fund as it makes investments through debt, equity and revenue participation agreements. The firm has completed eight of these investments to date and will continue to support this important work.
For award-winning, innovative fund Social and Sustainable Capital, Dechert has provided legal advice to the Social and Sustainable Housing fund II, which provides flexible secured loans of between £2 million (US$2.6 million) and £10 million (US$12.9 million) to enable charities to house disadvantaged clients affected by homelessness, domestic violence and mental health issues. The fund has invested in more than 20 organizations.
Case Study: Social Impact Investing
Public benefits go to the heart of our most essential human needs. We are proud to work with The Legal Aid Society and NYLAG to protect these needs.
Since Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, many Dechert offices have been working to help Afghans seeking refuge in other countries. Here are examples of our work:
When it became clear that applying for refuge under the UK Afghan resettlement schemes was flawed, a team in London provided pro bono research for the JUSTICE report Reforming the Afghanistan Resettlement Schemes: the way forward for ARAP and ACRS (the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme).
Lawyers in our Dublin office, in collaboration with other organizations, have been involved in family reunification applications for unaccompanied teenage refugees from Afghanistan and Somalia.
Since January 2022, our Paris office has worked with Safe Passage and other law firms to support Afghans with family reunification cases. To date, three families Dechert represented have been reunited in France, and further casework is ongoing.
Since January 2024, the firm has worked with the Max Planck Foundation and three other firms to assist Afghan judges and lawyers at risk in Afghanistan to resettle in Germany. Our work includes taking evidence to prepare risk statements and application forms.
A team in the United States has assisted numerous individuals and families with applications for humanitarian parole and asylum. Indeed, the firm has had three recent success stories, including two grants of asylum.
Case Study: Working to Assist Afghans Seeking Refuge
A commitment to housing justice helps maintain community stability.
Military medical retirement benefits are critical to veterans injured during their service. Many veterans and their families depend on the benefits for retirement payments and access to healthcare.
In November 2020, Dechert and the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP), an independent nonprofit dedicated to assisting active-duty military members and veterans, filed a class action complaint in the United States Court for the District of Columbia. On behalf of former Navy and Marine Corps members, the team challenged an unlawful practice that potentially resulted in the denial of military medical retirement benefits to more than 3,300 Navy and Marine Corps veterans for more than 15 years.
The Navy had failed to assign “ratings” to medical disabilities the veterans incurred during their service and contributed to the veterans being medically discharged, as required by Navy regulations at the time.
The veterans won the class action settlement on March 23, 2024, with the court entering a landmark order requiring the Navy to provide new disability ratings to thousands of veterans.
Eligibility for military medical retirement benefits is determined by a veteran’s overall disability rating. By failing to account for these contributory disabilities, the Navy had potentially deprived the veterans of a medical retirement.
Case Study: Dechert and NVLSP Secure Class Action Settlement for Veterans
Each child’s story and personal circumstance is different.
Dechert achieved a victory for plaintiffs Helen Weems, Blue Mountain Clinic and All Families Healthcare, abortion providers in Montana. They sought a preliminary injunction to enjoin legislation that would have jeopardized access to abortions. The Center for Reproductive Rights and the ACLU of Montana also represented the plaintiffs.
In 2023, the Montana legislature enacted House Bill 937 (HB 937), which set implementing rules that would have shut the few abortion clinics in Montana. The plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining order (TRO), pending a hearing on their motion for a preliminary injunction. After the court granted a TRO in September 2023, the parties agreed to extend it for 60 days after the effective date of the final rules.
In September 2024, Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services published the rules with immediate effect, subject to the TRO. Dechert lawyers played a significant role in briefing the motion for a preliminary injunction and assisted in mooting the Center for Reproductive Rights, which argued the motion in November 2024.
The court concluded the plaintiffs were “likely to show” that HB 937 infringed on providers’ and patients’ rights to equal protection and issued a preliminary injunction until after the merits can be fully heard. The next step will be to persuade the court that HB 937 and its rules are unconstitutional.
Case Study: Montana Reproductive Rights
A significant achievement in the pursuit of truth and responsibility.
Dechert lawyers partnered with the Public Interest Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania to litigate a high-profile voting rights case in Butler County, Pennsylvania, leading up to the 2024 general election.
During the April 2024 primary election, two voters each mistakenly submitted their mail-in ballot without the required secrecy envelope, causing their ballots to be cancelled. Following Department of State instructions, each voter completed a provisional ballot at their polling place on election day. However, Butler County’s elections board did not count those provisional ballots.
Dechert argued the voters did not “cast” ballots under the Pennsylvania Election Code when submitting their faulty mail-in ballots because those ballots could not be counted. So, Butler County’s elections board was required by law to count the voters’ provisional ballots to ensure they voted “once and only once.” The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania agreed, ruling in a precedent-setting decision that voters whose mail-in ballots were cancelled have the right to vote by provisional ballot on election day – and the right to have those provisional ballots counted.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied an application to stay the decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, ensuring thousands of Pennsylvanians had their votes counted in the November election.
Case Study: Protecting Voting Rights in Pennsylvania
Innovation and AI
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For law firms to thrive in a competitive market, they need instill in their people progressive ways of thinking, working and serving clients. Dechert’s skills-building programs, characterized by having lawyers and business professionals work on an equal footing, have increased colleagues’ sense of purpose, organizational commitment and cross-team collaboration.
Dechert’s acclaimed Innovation Certificate Program held its fourth successful edition in 2024, focusing on groundbreaking, disruptive strategic thinking and problem-solving around client service and experience. Delivered in partnership with external experts in innovation, organizational design, change management and behavioral science, the program exposes participants to new ways of approaching business and career challenges, by identifying and counteracting cognitive biases that prevent innovation, generating radical ideas and prototyping those that have human and business value. After three months of intense, hands-on work, two of the ideas generated by participants in the program were chosen to be implemented by the firm, with a view to launching these ideas in 2025.
The firm also continued to pursue Dechert Innovation Foundations, a concise introduction to design thinking for legal professionals and its applications to micro- and macro-innovation opportunities, which will be compulsory for all Dechert employees in 2025, and introduced a Summers Innovation Foundations for U.S. summer associates, continuing to encourage radical thinking at all levels of the firm.
Expansion of Innovation Skills-Building Programs
Dechert has become one of the most innovative law firms in the world because we leverage internal behavioral science capabilities and focus on behavior change – not just technology – as the key for meaningful and sustainable growth of the organization and its people.
Dechert’s view is that for progress to occur there must be an understanding of lawyers’ and business professionals’ current mindsets and behaviors, as well as programs that will help them pivot towards more openness to change, experimentation, curiosity, boldness and controlled risk-taking – and the experience of collaborating with experts in fields as diverse as data science, behavior science, organizational psychology and cognitive sciences.
Promoting Radical Thinking Across Practice Groups
We have created spaces that promote radical, strategic thinking among lawyers and business professionals, which is essential to questioning the status quo, challenging traditional practices, experimenting with new technologies, proposing unconventional ideas and piloting revolutionary and transformative solutions in close collaboration with experts outside law.
These initiatives encourage lawyers and business professionals to envision themselves in fictional dystopian futures, to reflect how they would behave and work in such circumstances and to generate ideas for implementation today that might prevent such a negative future from materializing.
For example, Dechert financial services lawyers embarked on a radical-thinking exercise that resulted in lawyers working side by side with an experienced data scientist and interaction designer to co-design and develop internal and client-facing solutions to enhance deal management and automate document drafting. Prototypes were unveiled in December 2024 for launch by June 2025.
Strong Focus on Behavior Change as the Activator for Innovation
Serving 19 of the 20 largest asset managers, Dechert advises on the most complex and specialized questions, and complements its high-quality legal advice with cutting-edge technology.
The firm’s Disclosure Trends Tracker uses an automated process to scan thousands of public regulatory filings for risk disclosures, deciphering trends across the industry. The tracker maintains a roster of more than 1,700 updates the firm has observed throughout the industry and can use the data to inform legal analyses for clients. Dechert separately feeds this dataset into a benchmarking tool that allows people to search across the dataset with generative AI so that language aligns with market practice.
The firm uses similar tools to parse and understand correspondence filings of registered funds filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This dataset of 400,000 records has been enhanced with metadata fields to anticipate and address SEC disclosure staff issues. It uses a sophisticated search mechanism that not only enables lawyers to query the database for answers, but also enables them to search with generative AI, rather than keyword-based methods.
These are just two examples of tools the firm has built to enhance advice to financial services clients with rigorous, efficient analysis.
Next Generation Tools for Financial Services Clients
Generative AI reshaped how the firm’s litigation teams handle extensive datasets, across product liability, antitrust, life sciences and intellectual property, often in some of the biggest matters. The teams can “chat” across large datasets to unearth trends previously difficult to find.
Taking a dataset and simply asking questions allows the firm’s lawyers to efficiently find information. Because the tool always points to the sources used to derive its answers, lawyers make their independent legal analysis without having to rely on a black box.
These dataset chat sites help the firm to decipher trends, and they allow lawyers to work faster and save time for higher value, more complex legal questions. For many clients, these individual chat sites have saved significant time our lawyers have needed to complete their projects, which has translated into large efficiency gains.
Chatting With Datasets: A Gamechanger for Litigation Teams
Dechert was among the first law firms to launch its own generative AI tool – and has now built 30+ generative AI tools – to enhance the way our people serve clients.
The firm’s “build first” approach to generative AI earned it The American Lawyer’s “Best Use of Technology” award in November 2024, and Dechert was ranked second in the “Innovation in Generative AI Strategy” category by The Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards in December 2024.
Innovation Incubator—Investing in the Future
Since 2019, Dechert has channeled more than 10,000 hours into its Innovation Incubator, a vehicle designed to foster micro-innovation by offering lawyers billable hours credit for time spent working on projects that could change the way the firm does business and create significant value for clients.
Resulting in more than 1,000 projects each year, the Incubator has been widely lauded, with Dechert being named winner in the “Law Firm Innovation” category by New York Law Journal and a finalist in the “Legal Services Innovation” category by The American Lawyer in late 2024.
Leveraging Agentic AI
In January 2024, Dechert began using Agentic AI to enhance client services and streamline internal processes. Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can perform tasks autonomously, acting as "agents" that can make decisions and take actions on behalf of users.
Our exploration of Agents has given us a better understanding of how different types of large language models compare and what the future of work may look like. Our use of Agents will position us well for finding information faster and streamlining projects in 2025.
Leading the Industry in Generative AI
Our Culture
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Dechert is a global law firm that advises asset managers, financial institutions and corporations on issues critical to managing their business and their capital – from high-stakes litigation to complex transactions and regulatory matters. We answer questions that seem unsolvable, develop deal structures that are new to the market and protect clients’ rights in extreme situations. Our nearly 1,000 lawyers across 18 offices globally focus on the financial services, private equity, private credit, real estate, life sciences and technology sectors.
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