Firm’s 11th leader wins full three-year term
Reed Smith has announced the election of Alexander “Sandy” Thomas as its global managing partner (GMP). Sandy’s three-year term as GMP will begin on 1 August 2014.
Sandy, former chair of Reed Smith’s firmwide litigation department, was selected by the executive committee as global managing partner in October 2013, when former global managing partner Gregory Jordan left the firm to become executive vice president and general counsel of PNC Financial Services Group Inc. Sandy has now been elected by the partners of the firm to a full three-year term.
A 1993 graduate of Washington & Lee University School of Law, Sandy joined Reed Smith in 1999 when the firm combined with Hazel & Thomas P.C. Based in the firm’s Washington, DC office, he is the 11th managing partner of the firm in its 137-year history. Before assuming leadership of the firm’s 850-member firmwide litigation department, Sandy was vice-chair of commercial litigation, practice group leader of US eastern commercial litigation, and was twice elected by the partnership to serve on the firm’s executive committee.
He is a commercial litigator and antitrust counsellor with significant experience in antitrust and competition, global regulatory enforcement, commercial compliance matters, and competition-related disputes. Before entering private practice, he was a trial attorney in the antitrust division of the US Department of Justice, and served as special assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division.
In addition to building Reed Smith’s strong global litigation presence, Sandy, as a member of the firm’s leadership team, has played a role in the firm’s strategic growth and development, including the firm’s expansion throughout the US and into international markets on three continents.
