Frederick Heller

Heller lived and practiced in Europe for more than 25 years, the last 20 years in London and before that in Brussels. At the end of 2016, he retired as a partner of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and returned to the United States. In Europe, he focused on cross-border deals and participated in managing international law firm offices. He led his firm’s international finance group and acted in significant mergers, acquisitions and disposals, as well as financings. He handled deals in Russia, the CIS, Africa, the Middle East and India, as well as in every European Union member state. For ten years, he served as partner in charge of Akin Gump’s London office and, earlier in his career, managed the Brussels and London offices of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.

Before law school, Heller worked as a news reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Constitution, New York Daily News, Concord (N.H.) Daily Monitor and United Press International.

Professor Heller teaches public international law, business transactions in emerging markets and specializes in international business transactions, in particular in emerging markets.

Heller has been recognized as a leading lawyer in London on a number of occasions. From 2013 through 2016, Chambers & Partners recognized Heller as a leading lawyer in banking and finance in the UK and in Europe and, in Chambers Global, as a leading foreign expert in Russian and UK banking and finance. He was also a member of the teams that won several recent awards, including: TMT Finance’s 2015 Deal of the Year Middle East North Africa for a sale of 51% of an Algerian telecoms group to the Algerian Government; Frontier Markets Issue of the Year 2014 awarded by International Finance Review Asia for the first international bond issue out of Bangladesh; Corporate Team of the Year at the London Legal Business Awards in 2012; and Legal Innovation in Emerging Markets, given by the Financial Times in 2011. In the International Financial Law Review Middle East Awards for 2012 M&A Deal of the Year, he led the runner up team.

During law school, Heller was an editor of The Yale Law Journal.