Claude Serra retired from the partnership in 2024. He founded the Paris office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Claude has practiced law for more than 20 years and established a reputation as a leading M&A specialist, working on the most visible and complex public M&A and securities transactions of the past years, and also as a litigator in complex corporate matters. His practice focused on public and private M&A transactions – both domestic and cross border. He advised boards of directors and senior management on governance issues, strategic defenses, fiduciary duties of directors, as well as crisis management matters. Claude also regularly counseled corporations on shareholders disputes, as well as white-collar crime and securities litigation.
Referred to by Option Finance magazine as the “M&A Stradivarius,” Claude was also recognized as the “2012 Lawyer of the Year” by Option Droit & Affaires, and has been consistently listed as one of the leading merger and acquisitions lawyers by Chambers Global and Chambers Europe, which have quoted clients as stating that he is “a fantastic rainmaker and very visible when it comes to M&A.”
Claude graduated from the University of Aix-en-Provence with a Maîtrise en Droit (Master in Law) in 1978 and was admitted to the French Bar in 1978.