Barbara L. Becker is Chair and Managing Partner of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  She is the seventh Chair and Managing Partner in the firm’s 131-year history.  Prior to becoming the firm’s Chair and Managing Partner, Ms. Becker served as Co-Chair of Gibson Dunn’s Mergers and Acquisitions Practice Group for over a decade, and also created and led the firmwide Diversity Committee.

Ms. Becker advises companies on all significant business and legal issues, including mergers and acquisitions (including domestic and cross-border), spin-offs, joint ventures and general corporate matters.  Ms. Becker also advises boards of directors and special committees of public companies.  Ms. Becker represents corporations and investment banks based in and outside of the United States and other investors in their M&A activities.  Ms. Becker focuses on clients in the consumer/retail, technology, healthcare and industrial industries.

Highly regarded as one of the elite M&A lawyers in New York, Ms. Becker has been recognized by:

• Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business;
• Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business;
• The Legal 500 US as “Leading Lawyer”;
• The Best Lawyers in America®;
• BTI Consulting as a “BTI Client Service All-Star”;
• New York Metro Super Lawyers;
• International Financial Law Review as a “Market Leader,” to its list of “Women Leaders” for the past four years and also the winner in the “Mergers & Acquisitions” category at its Americas Women in Business Law Awards;
• Lawdragon as one of the “500 Leading Lawyers in America” and “500 Leading Dealmakers in America”;
• The Deal’s “Women in M&A: The Powerhouse 20” and “Top Women in Dealmaking”;
• Euromoney’s Legal Media Group Expert Guides in its Guide to the World’s Leading Women in Business Law and its Guide to the World’s Leading Banking, Finance and Transactional Lawyers;
• Who’s Who Legal M&A and Governance
• LMG Life Sciences as a “Life Sciences Star” for Mergers & Acquisitions;
• New York Law Journal’s list of the “Top Women in Law”;
• The National Law Journal’s list of “Outstanding Women Lawyers”;
• Law360’s list of “Top Female Deal Makers”;
• Crain’s New York Business as one of its “Notable Women in Law” and one of its “Forty under Forty:  New York’s New Generation of Leaders”; and
• The AmLaw Daily as “Dealmaker of the Week” for her representation of Kraft Foods, Inc. in its $19 billion acquisition of Cadbury.

Ms. Becker’s corporate clients include Accenture, General Electric, Kraft Heinz, Merck, News Corp., PepsiCo and VMware, among others.

Ms. Becker’s investment bank clients include Centerview, Evercore, Guggenheim Securities, Lazard and UBS, among others.

Ms. Becker earned her Juris Doctor in 1988 from New York University School of Law.  She received her undergraduate degree in 1985 from Wesleyan University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.  Ms. Becker is a member of the Board of Trustees of New York University School of Law.  Ms. Becker is also Chair of the New York City Bar’s Mergers, Acquisitions & Corporate Control Contests Committee.