Susan Webster is a partner in Cravath's Corporate Department and leads the Firm's General Corporate practice. For more than 25 years, she has represented public companies in connection with a wide variety of corporate matters. Ms. Webster has extensive experience counseling senior management and boards of directors in connection with general corporate issues, including corporate and board governance, crisis management, compliance, and public reporting obligations, including significant disclosure issues. She has deep experience advising clients on financial statement restatements and accounting-related disclosure issues. Ms. Webster also has substantial experience negotiating significant complex transactions for clients including, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, strategic alliances and joint ventures.
Among other general corporate assignments, Ms. Webster currently represents Bank of America in connection with its public reporting and compliance obligations and had represented the non-management directors of Merrill Lynch from October 2007 until its acquisition by Bank of America. She advised the non management directors of Huron Consulting Group in connection with the restatement of certain of its historical financial statements and continues to advise the directors with respect to matters related to the restatement and other general corporate issues. Her other general corporate clients have included Ashland, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company ("BMS"), the non-management directors of PMI, the Audit Committee of Tronox, and Xerox. Ms. Webster was recognized for her securities law advisory work by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business in 2011 and 2012.
Ms. Webster is recognized as a leader in promoting gender diversity in law and business. As the first woman at Cravath to be named a corporate partner, she has been actively involved in Cravath's diversity efforts. Ms. Webster is a member of the Firm's Diversity Committee and co-founded and today serves as Co-Chair of the Firm's Women's Initiative. She is a founding member and Co-Chair of The Kate Stoneman Project, a leadership organization for women partners of ten leading New York law firms. Ms. Webster recently joined the Board of Legal Advisors for Legal Momentum (The Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund). She has served as Co-Chair of the Honoree Selection Committee and Co-Chair of the Development Committee of DirectWomen, an organization designed to identify, develop and support women lawyers on boards of U.S. public companies.
Ms. Webster is a member of the Fordham Law School Alumni Advisory Board and a member and Secretary of the St. Bernard's School Board of Trustees in New York City. She is a Trustee Emerita of Wesleyan University having served as a Trustee for twelve years. While on the Wesleyan Board, Ms. Webster chaired the Audit Committee and served as Secretary of the Board.
Ms. Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She received a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1977, an M.S. in Accounting from New York University Graduate School of Business in 1978 and a J.D. cum laude from Fordham University School of Law in 1984, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Fordham Law Review. From 1977 to 1981, Ms. Webster was an auditor at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., a predecessor firm of KPMG LLP. Ms. Webster joined Cravath in 1984 and became a partner in 1991.