John S. Herbert is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is base in the Firm's New York office. John is a senior member of the Firm’s private equity, mergers & acquisitions and securities practices. He is the principal relationship partner for several of the Firm’s private equity fund clients, including funds active in North America and other international markets. He also advises private equity fund bankers and portfolio company managers.
Chambers Global Guide 2009 and Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business 2008 ranked John among the top private equity lawyers. He was also ranked as one of the leading lawyers in the private equity business by both the International Financial Law Review 1000 and Euromoney’s Guide to the World’s Leading Private Equity Lawyers.
He has over 25 years experience representing U.S. and international financial buyers in the private equity area and a wide variety of other clients in complex mergers and acquisitions transactions.
He advises private equity funds in connection with their portfolio investments in public and private companies, including initial acquisitions and platform startups, divestitures, add-on acquisitions, leveraged loan financings and high-yield offerings, and various exit transactions, including dispositions, initial public offerings and recapitalizations. He has played the leading role in organizing teams of lawyers in the mergers and acquisitions, compensations and benefits, tax, financing and other areas of practice and executing a variety of private equity control acquisitions or dispositions, minority investments and other related transactions.
John also advises private equity portfolio company management teams on their participation in buyouts and other private equity investments by funds. He leads interdisciplinary teams of executive compensation, tax, trusts and estates and securities lawyers to help portfolio company managers achieve their equity incentive and compensation objectives over the life of a fund's investment in the managers' employer. His advice also includes a focus on managers' issues with employers in distressed situations.
John also represents private equity fund sponsors in connection with the formation and operation of private equity funds, as well as fund bankers on their employment and incentive compensation arrangements with funds. He also counsels sponsors and employees of other newly formed financial firms.
He is admitted to the New York bar.
John is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Poly Prep Country Day School, Brooklyn, New York.
Education
- George Washington University Law School, J.D. (magna cum laude, Order of the Coif), 1978
- Harvard Business School, M.B.A.
- University of Pennsylvania, B.A.
