Norma Harris, LawFuel contributor
Gibson Dunn is planting its flag in Spain, and it’s doing it the only way Big Law knows how – by hiring the country’s most decorated dealmaker and building an office around him.
The firm has confirmed that Armando Albarrán, widely regarded as Spain’s premier private equity and M&A lawyer, is joining as a partner, triggering the launch of Gibson Dunn’s Madrid office. It is not a symbolic outpost. This is a full-blooded expansion of the Gibson Dunn’s European transactional machine.
Albarrán arrives with a reputation that does the heavy lifting. He is Band 1 across the board at Chambers for Capital Markets, Corporate/M&A and Private Equity, and has advised on many of Spain’s most consequential domestic and cross-border transactions. IPOs, takeovers, sponsor deals, bond offerings, energy, infrastructure, telecoms, real estate. If it has moving parts and nine-figure price tags, he has likely touched it.
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The firm has also just announced 42 newly promoted partners span 17 offices across the firm’s integrated global platform. 26 percent of the class is based in London, marking the largest partner promotion group ever in that office. Forty percent of the class is located outside the U.S.—significantly exceeding prior years, underscoring the firm’s strength and continued investment in both domestic and international markets.
Barbara Becker, Gibson Dunn’s Chair and Managing Partner, framed Madrid as a strategic hinge between Europe and the Americas, calling it “a vital European hub for private equity and cross-border M&A”.
The move caps a muscular European growth story. Gibson Dunn’s London office has more than doubled in five years, from 84 lawyers in 2020 to over 200 today. Zurich opened last year. Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris are already in play. Madrid is the missing tile.
This is not a boutique beachhead. It is Gibson Dunn betting that Spain is no longer a peripheral market, but a serious arena for global capital. With Albarrán at the helm, Madrid launches with instant credibility.
Big Law does not open offices for romance. It opens them for deal flow. Gibson Dunn clearly sees plenty of it coming through Spain.
