M&A Lawyer Marc Samuel Joins DLA Piper in Washington DC

February 19, 2020 – DLA Piper announced today that Marc Samuel has joined the firm’s Corporate practice as a partner in Washington, DC and New York. 

Samuel focuses on private equity and M&A transactions, as well as corporate governance, finance and commercial matters. He has extensive experience managing transactions across a broad range of industries, including technology, communications, cybersecurity, defense, sports, healthcare and life sciences.

Samuel’s practice complements DLA Piper’s leading transactional practice. DLA Piper is the only law firm to rank among the top five most active law firms for each of global M&A, private equity and venture capital deal volume, according to PitchBook‘s 2019 global league tables report, ranking first for M&A transactions, second for private equity transactions and fifth for venture capital transactions. 

“Marc brings an impressive background handling sophisticated cross-border transactions for clients in the US and in Europe, Asia and elsewhere across the globe,” said Joe Alexander, global co-chair of DLA Piper’s Corporate and Private Equity practices. “His vast transactional experience, including his work with leading private equity firms, will complement our global platform and be an invaluable resource for clients.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Marc to the firm and to our Corporate team in DC and New York, where we are focused on strategically expanding our capabilities and experience, particularly in key areas such as private equity and technology, where we are seeing increased demand from clients,” said Jeff Lehrer, managing partner of the firm’s Washington, DC office. “Marc’s addition to the firm will enable us to expand our service offerings to meet the needs of companies operating in those rapidly evolving industries.”

Samuel received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, his M.B.A. from Georgetown University and his B.B.A. from the University of Kentucky.

Did you Read?

• Lawyers Just Jacked Their Hourly Billing Rates to $3,400 — and Clients Are Saying “Thanks, That’ll Do Nicely”
  You know that moment when a client looks at a bill and just… nods? Christopher Clark, a litigator at a boutique law firm, got one of those last year, the WSJ reported. He’d hiked his rate to a once-absurd $3,000 an hour. The client’s reply? “Congratulations. That’s the highest we’ve seen.” A year earlier, $2,500 felt like the ceiling. Now it looks almost cute. According to Persuit’s latest billing data, senior partners at the biggest 50 firms pushed rates up an average 16% in 2025. Some are now openly quoting $3,400 an hour. And that’s before you get to the real outliers. In bankruptcy filings, Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis have partners clearing the $3,000 mark this year. Reuters reported in January that Susman Godfrey’s Bill Carmody and Neal Manne quietly set their 2026 rack rate at $4,000 an hour — up from $3,000 last year. (Lawfuel broke the same story and called it “Four Thousand an Hour Arrives in US Big Law Billing.”)
• Linklaters Continues US Expansion With New Office
  Linklaters continues its aggressive U.S. expansion, highlighted by the recent February 2026 lease of an additional 48,000… Read more: Linklaters Continues US Expansion With New Office
• How Brad Karp Lost the Plot: David Lat’s Forensic Dissection of the Paul Weiss Chairman’s Downfall
  BigLaw • Analysis The Karp Collapse: David Lat Dissects the Emails That Ended an Era at Paul… Read more: How Brad Karp Lost the Plot: David Lat’s Forensic Dissection of the Paul Weiss Chairman’s Downfall
• Legal Market Analysis – BigLaw’s Lateral Frenzy Is Reshaping the Market
  The Perkins Coie exodus in Seattle signals a permanent shift in the lateral hiring labor market that is changing the way top law firms operate. Lateral hiring is no longer just a tactic but an entire business model. When Perkins Coie lost lawyers to the announcement new offices for Morrison Foerster and McGuireWoods. It was in fact a signal of something structural. The departures came as Perkins Coie prepares for its merger with Ashurst, a combination that will create a global platform of roughly 3,000 lawyers. The timing reveals a pattern that now defines elite legal practice: mergers create opportunity, but they also create instability. And instability is oxygen for competitors. What we are witnessing is not a phase. It is the emergence of lateral acquisition as BigLaw’s dominant growth strategy. The New Economics: Why Firms Are Buying Revenue
• Women In Law Firm Leadership: The Stubborn 20% Ceiling That Won’t Crack
  The legal profession has a mathematics problem. Women now constitute the majority of law school graduates, comprise over half of associates at major firms, and represent 47% of all lawyers globally. Yet when the elevator reaches the executive floor, the numbers tell a different story: just two in ten law firm leaders are women (although when they do reach the top women legal leaders are making a difference). The latest research from the International Bar Association’s Raising the Bar: Women in Law project confirms what many practitioners have long suspected – the profession is experiencing a spectacular leakage of female talent somewhere between the mid-career mark and the managing partner’s office. The Numbers That Should Keep Managing Partners Awake The IBA’s December 2024 Progress Report, synthesizing data from 11 countries across five continents, reveals the uncomfortable arithmetic: