Sullivan & Cromwell is Top Dealmeister

Edging out London's Clifford Chance for top honors, New York City's Sullivan & Cromwell was once again the number one law firm overseeing the world's biggest corporate deals in the first half of 2007.

Although Clifford Chance took the lead in the first quarter of the year, Sullivan & Cromwell earned a bigger slice of the corporate legal advice pie in the first half of 2007 "by advising on six of the 10 largest deals, including Barclays Plc's planned acquisition of ABN Amro Holding NV for $90.7 billion," Bloomberg reports today.

Advising corporations on mergers and acquisitions is a booming business for law firms right now, due to several positive market factors encouraging big deals, says H. Rodgin Cohen, 63, Sullivan & Cromwell's chairman. "Interest rates are remaining low, there's a lot of liquidity and the stock market is relatively healthy.''