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 chair of the Board of Advisors of the NYU Law Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance. 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.
Katz is co-chair of the Tulane Corporate Law Institute, teaches Corporate Governance and Mergers & Acquisitions at New York University School of Law and previously co-taught joint law and business short courses at Vanderbilt University Law School and Owen School of Management with former Delaware Chief Justice Leo Strine, who is now of counsel at the Firm.
Lawdragon Honors
Katz was elected by The American College of Governance Counsel as an Inaugural Class Fellow and is a member of the American Law Institute, where he is an adviser on the Restatement of the Law, Corporate Governance Project.
Katz serves as a member of the Board of Trustees at New York University (Executive Vice Chairman), at NYU Langone Health System, and at New York University School of Law. He also regularly writes a column on corporate governance for the New York Law Journal with his colleague Laura McIntosh.
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. Katz is also a member of the ABA Federal Securities Laws Committee, the New York State Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Society for Corporate Governance and the National Association of Corporate Directors.
Katz is a graduate of Brandeis University and New York University School of Law