Lee Meyerson specializes in mergers and acquisitions and in capital markets transactions for financial institutions. Lee, who is Head of the Firm’s Financial Institutions Practice and former head of its M&A Group, has participated in many of the largest U.S. financial services mergers of the past decade, including representing JPMorgan Chase & Co. in its $58 billion merger with Bank One, Mellon Financial in its $16.8 billion merger with The Bank of New York and The Toronto-Dominion Bank in its acquisitions of Commerce Bancorp ($8.5 billion), Chrysler Financial ($6.3 billion) and Target’s credit card portfolio ($5.9 billion). His transactions over the past several years also include representing KeyCorp in its $4 billion acquisition of First Niagara, JPMorgan Chase in the $3.5 billion sale of its global physical commodities business, private equity investors in their $1 billion investment in Banco Santander’s U.S. auto finance business and its subsequent IPO, The Charles Schwab Corporation in its $1 billion acquisition of optionsXpress, The Carlyle Group in its acquisition of the TCW Group (a $130 billion AUM asset manager) and Blackstone and Carlyle in their majority investment in First Eagle (a $90 billion AUM asset manager). At the height of the financial crisis in October 2008, he represented the U.S. Treasury in connection with developing, structuring and documenting its $250 billion TARP program for purchasing equity in U.S. financial institutions. In addition, during this period he represented a broad variety of bank bidders and investor consortiums in recapitalization transactions and FDIC failed bank auctions.

Lee’s capital markets practice includes IPOs and a broad range of debt and equity offerings for banks, thrifts, insurance companies and other financial services companies. He has been ranked as one of the leading M&A and banking lawyers in the United States in a number of recent surveys, including The American Lawyer, which selected him as a "Dealmaker of the Year" for both 2008 (no. 4) and 2005, Chambers USA 2016 Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (Financial Institutions M&A – Band 1; Financial Services Regulation – Band 3), Who’s Who Legal (“Top 10” lawyer in Banking 2015), and The Legal 500 US 2015 (Leading lawyer in Financial Services: Regulatory and M&A: mega-deals).

Lee joined Simpson Thacher in 1981 and became a partner in 1989. He received his A.B., magna cum laude, from Duke University and his J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he was an editor of the New York University Law Review.