Shannon Rose Selden is the Chair of the firm’s Asset Management Litigation Practice and a Co-Coordinator of the Private Equity Group. Ms. Selden has a broad practice representing hedge fund and private equity clients, as plaintiffs and defendants, in complex, high-stakes litigation. Ms. Selden has significant experience as lead counsel in state and federal courts in the full range of matters affecting asset management firms, including merger, securities, contract, corporate governance, fiduciary, financing and debt restructuring disputes. She is ranked as a leading lawyer for Commercial Litigation by Chambers USA (2023), which has described her as “an outstanding lawyer and strategic adviser” and “a very analytical and creative thinker.” She is also recommended by The Legal 500 US (2023), which has reported that her advice is “strategic, tailored, [and] insightful” and that she is a “brilliant lawyer at the very top.” She has been recognized as a Law360 “MVP” for Asset Management, a “Litigation Star” and as one of the “Top 250 Women in Litigation” by Benchmark Litigation. Ms. Selden and her colleagues were also recognized by Law360 as “Asset Management Practice Group of the Year” and as “Private Equity Practice Group of the Year.” She has been named to the 2020 Crain’s New York Business list of “Notable Women in Law.” She was shortlisted for “Best in Private Equity” at Euromoney’s “2018 Women in Business Law Awards.”
Ms. Selden is a member of the Special Situations team and has particular expertise in litigating complex and leveraged transactions, including in some of the most significant cases related to the SunEdison, Westinghouse Electric Company, RadioShack, American Apparel, Lehman Brothers, and Madoff bankruptcies.
Ms. Selden has a significant pro bono practice at the forefront of U.S. reproductive rights litigation, advocating against state and federal laws that impact critical aspects of reproductive care. Her expertise includes representing the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Pediatric Association, the American Public Health Association, and numerous other leading medical organizations as amici curiae in various courts, including the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 9th, and DC Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court. Recently, Ms. Selden has represented one of three remaining clinics in Louisiana, in ground-breaking litigation challenging Louisiana’s TRAP laws and in unprecedented mandamus review in the 5th Circuit, and successfully invoked Texas anti-discrimination law for the first time ever to win an injunction and reinstatement of doctors in Texas stripped of their hospital admitting privileges. Ms. Selden’s work in this area has been recognized in major publications including, “Big Law Pro Bono Takes on ‘Heartbeat’ Abortion Restrictions” Bloomberg Law (2019); “5th Circuit Won't Block Sweeping New Challenge to Abortion Regulations” The AmLaw Litigation Daily; and “Against a Tidal Wave, Law Firms Fight for Reproductive Rights” The American Lawyer (2019).
Ms. Selden joined the firm in 2001 and became a partner in 2011. From January 2003 to January 2004, she clerked for the Hon. Denise Cote, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ms. Selden received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2001. At Yale, she was the co-editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities and a director of the Morris Tyler Moot Court Competition. She received a B.A. summa cum laude from Amherst College in 1998, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and winner of the Densmore Barry Collins Prize in Political Science.
In 2004 and 2005, Ms. Selden was an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Toledo, where she taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Criminal Law. Her research focused on securities law, in particular on interdisciplinary analysis of the adequacy of laws designed to prevent and prosecute malfeasance in the financial markets.
Ms. Selden is admitted to appear before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits; and the United States Supreme Court. She has served as a member of the Federal Practice Task Force of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation and as Co-Chair of the Section’s 2010 Annual Conference. Ms. Selden is a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Fiction and a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. Ms. Selden was featured in a documentary on the New York Times website, “Great Expectations for Female Lawyers” (2013), a follow-up from a 2001 New York Times Magazine article in which 21 women lawyers at Debevoise were profiled and interviewed about the career prospects for women in law firms.