David Andrew Katz

David A. Katz is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City, an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, and co-chair of the Board of Advisors of the NYU Law Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance.  Previously, he was an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School and at the Owen Graduate School of Management.  Mr. Katz is a corporate attorney focusing on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, shareholder activism and complex securities transactions, has been involved in many major domestic and international merger, acquisition and buyout transactions, strategic defense assignments and proxy contests, and has been involved in a number of complex public and private offerings and corporate restructurings.  He frequently counsels boards of directors and board committees on corporate governance matters and crisis management.

Mr. Katz taught Mergers and Acquisitions at New York University School of Law for over 15 years and previously co-taught a joint law and business short course on mergers and acquisitions at Vanderbilt University Law School with Delaware Chief Justice Leo Strine.  He is co-chair of the Tulane Corporate Law Institute.

In 2004, he was chosen by The American Lawyer as one of the 45 highest performing members of the private bar under the age of 45; in 2005, 2012 and 2015, he was selected by The American Lawyer as a Dealmaker of the Year; in 2016, he was named by NACD Directorship as one of the 100 most influential players in corporate governance for the seventh time; in 2013 he was named Lawyer of the Year by Global M&A Network; in 2014 and each of the five prior years he was named Who’s Who Legal’s Mergers and Acquisitions Lawyer of the Year, in 2014 was also named Who’s Who Legal’s Corporate Governance Lawyer of the Year and in 2015 and 2016 was named Who’s Who Legal’sCorporate Governance and M&A Lawyer of the Year; and in 2015 he was elected by The American College of Governance Counsel as an Inaugural Class Fellow.

Mr. Katz is a member of the American Bar Association, Section on Business Law, where he founded the Committee on Mergers and Acquisitions Task Force on the Dictionary of M&A Terms and a member of the Committee on Mergers and Acquisitions Subcommittee for Acquisitions of Public Companies.  Mr. Katz is also a member of the Federal Securities Laws Committee, the New York State Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.  Mr. Katz is a member of the Society for Corporate Governance and the National Association of Corporate Directors.  Mr. Katz serves as a member of the Board of Trustees at New York University and at New York University School of Law.  He sits on the Board of Directors of The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and is a member of the Advisory Board at the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. He writes a bi-monthly column on corporate governance for the New York Law Journal with his colleague Laura McIntosh.

Mr. Katz is a graduate of Brandeis University and New York University School of Law.