William M. Hartnett is chairman of Cahill's Executive Committee and is a member of its corporate practice group.
For over thirty years, Bill has advised leading commercial and investment banking firms and public and private companies in a broad range of domestic and cross-border capital markets and lending transactions, including leveraged bank financings, out-of-court restructurings, mergers, acquisitions and debt and equity-linked securities offerings.
Bill serves as outside corporate counsel to a number of public and private companies including 1-800-Flowers, White Birch Paper Company, Trans World Entertainment, Amarin Corporation plc, Azur Pharma Limited, Elan Corporation plc, ICON plc and Orleans Homebuilders. He has extensive experience representing special committees of the boards of directors of public companies including WebMD, Scottish Re and Chrysler LLC in connection with strategic transactions and related compliance matters.
Since his representation of the financing sources in the historic buyout of RJR Nabisco in 1989, Bill has been at the forefront of emerging financing structures for many prominent domestic and international financing transactions such as the buyouts of SunGard, VNU, HCA, Harrah's and First Data. He is consistently named among the top lawyers globally and nationally for capital markets and banking transactions by a variety of industry publications including: Chambers Global, Chambers USA, the IFLR 1000: Guide to the World's Leading Financial Law Firms, The Legal 500 and Global Counsel.
Bill joined Cahill following his graduation in 1979 from Fordham Law School, cum laude, where he was a member of the Fordham Law Review; he earned his undergraduate degree at Rider University in 1976, cum laude. He became a partner in 1986, joined the Executive Committee in 1998, and began his service as Cahill's Chairman in 2006.
