Finance: Restructuring Associate

About Latham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins is one of the world’s leading global law firms advising the businesses and institutions that drive the global economy. We are the market leaders in major financial and business centers globally and offer unmatched expertise and resources to help you grow from an intellectually curious self-starter into an exceptional lawyer. If you aspire to be the best, this is where you belong.

About the Practice Group

Our team — one of the world’s largest restructuring practices — advises the full array of stakeholders involved with financially distressed businesses, including debtors and issuers of both public and private securities, all types of creditors, equity holders, new investors, boards of directors, and senior management teams. Combining practical commercial insight and a nuanced understanding of today’s most innovative financial structures, we drive consensus and lay out a clear and confident vision for the best path forward. A significant part of our work focuses on developing creative and value-maximizing strategies in complex, and often contentious, restructuring and insolvency matters with multi-layered capital structures — including some of the largest restructurings in the past decade. Our greatest strength is cross-collaboration with other market-leading practices in all of the major financial centers across the world, including the firm’s tax, M&A, private equity, capital markets, employment and benefits, and debt finance groups. We also collaborate closely with leading practitioners across Latham’s industry teams to deliver innovative and bespoke solutions for our clients. Our breadth of experience spans financial and operational restructurings, often with a cross-jurisdictional dynamic. We are equally adept at pursuing solutions in and out of court, including creditor compromise procedures, security enforcements, debt rescheduling, liability management transactions, exchange and tender offers, refinancings, new money and distressed financings, debt to-equity swap transactions, equity capital raises, and strategic and distressed M&A transactions. And because corporate governance is a key consideration in any stressed or distressed situation, we work closely with companies and their boards to identify and manage risk effectively, minimize fiduciary liability, and navigate stakeholder negotiations. Regardless of the challenge at hand, our team responds with strategic and comprehensive counsel — allowing clients to surmount the varied legal, financial, operational, and corporate governance obstacles that may arise in troubled situations, and achieve their business or investment goals.

About the Role

Latham highly values the experience judicial clerks bring to the firm. We are proud to have an impressive list of former clerks from US Bankruptcy Courts throughout the country. We are currently accepting judicial clerkship applications for 2027 associate positions in the Restructuring & Special Situations Group (within the Finance Department). We award progression credit and a bonus to associates who have completed a qualifying clerkship.

Main Contact Details

For those who are interested in joining the firm from a clerkship, please reach out to Jeffrey Alexander ([email protected]).

Additional Information

Investing in the well-being of our lawyers and staff is among the firm’s highest priorities. Through our “LiveWell Latham” program, we offer best-in-class benefits and comprehensive resources designed to support you and your loved ones through all life’s moments — from building a family and taking care of loved ones, to managing your health and saving for the future. Latham & Watkins is an equal opportunity employer. The Firm prohibits discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race (including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles), color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status (including veterans of the Vietnam era), gender expression, marital status, or any other characteristic or condition protected by applicable statute. We periodically provide demographic data to legal publications, bar associations, civic and community organizations, and in some instances, to local, state, and federal government agencies as required by law or contract. So that the firm can provide this information accurately, we request that you consider self-identifying. Please click here to review your rights under U.S. employment laws. In accordance with Latham & Watkins policies, associates in this role must protect and maintain any highly sensitive, confidential, privileged, financial and/or proprietary information that Latham & Watkins retains either as part of the legal services the Firm provides to clients or for internal purposes. Los Angeles: Latham & Watkins LLP will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance (FCIHO). Please click the link above to review the Ordinance. San Francisco: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Please click the link above to review the Ordinance. Massachusetts: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability. An employer that violates this law may be subject to fines and/or a private right of action for $500 in statutory damages “for each such violation,” among other things.

Pay Range

Associate Base Salary

Discretionary bonuses may be available depending on application circumstances and position.

Class of US Payroll 2026$225,000 2025$225,000 2024$235,000 2023$260,000 2022$310,000 2021$365,000 2020$390,000 2019

$420,000

2018$435,000