Bill Shearer is a senior partner and has served as a member of the Board of Partners, the Firm's governing body and Chairman of the Compensation Committee. He has also served as Chair of the Firm's Business & Finance practice group and Co-Chair of the Firm's International Practice. He has over 40 years of experience representing public and privately traded businesses and their owners, directors, officers and managers in hostile and friendly mergers, acquisitions, financings and corporate governance matters. Mr. Shearer also has a business perspective that comes from serving on corporate boards and from owning, operating and selling several businesses.
Mr. Shearer has been involved in numerous transactions totaling more than $45 billion in transaction value. These have included acquisitions in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe and Russia involving, among others, Gannett, Minnesota Mining & Minerals, Groupa Televisa, Havas (a subsidiary of Vivendi), CBS, Infinity Broadcasting, Viacom, Infinity Outdoor, Lamar Outdoor Advertising, Eller Media (a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications), Del Webb Corporation, Party City Corporation, Disney, Auto Nation, Fisher Communications, Cincinnati Bell, CIBC, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Banc Paribas, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse First Boston, Proctor & Gamble, Nioxin and Utility Service Holding Corp .
Mr. Shearer has served as the outside general counsel for Outdoor Systems, Inc., a NYSE company having a $7 billion plus market cap, and is currently serving as the outside general counsel for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim major league baseball team.
In dispute resolution matters, Mr. Shearer has recently served as appellate counsel in a RICO case representing the CEO of a major subsidiary of a world-wide media company in an 8th Circuit appeal and obtaining the reversal in June 2008 of a $4.5 million federal civil RICO jury verdict and a judgment of dismissal for the client. In addition, he has served as trial counsel in a $350 million contract damages dispute which was successfully decided in favor of Angels Baseball after a month long jury trial and in a $100 million class action matter which was also decided in favor of Angels Baseball at the trial level. Both of these matters are currently on appeal.
He is Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Georgia, representing the Seed Capital Fund, which was created to allow the state to provide investment capital to emerging businesses.
Mr. Shearer has served as a panel member on the annual White House Conference on Consumer Awareness and the Regulation of the Financial Services Industry. He has also served as a consulting editor for Research Institute of America, the Tax Management publication division of the Bureau of National Affairs, Prentice-Hall and the Institute of Business Planning. He has conducted numerous continuing education courses for the American Bar Association, the Georgia Bar Association, the Georgia Society of CPAs and a wide variety of professional and business organizations.
