Alan Samson

Alan Samson is an English and New York qualified partner based in the firm’s London office. He co-chairs the firm’s real estate group and heads the European real estate private equity team. He joined the firm in May 2000 as the firm’s first English law partner.

Mr. Samson has more than 30 years’ experience in all aspects of commercial real estate and real estate finance, including corporate and investment property acquisitions and disposals, acquisition financing and joint ventures. His practice has recently been heavily focused on the acquisition of real estate loan portfolios (whole loans, senior and/or junior notes and structured pieces) from financial institutions, distressed/vulture fund formation, recapitalisations, mezzanine loan origination and debt restructurings and workouts. His client base is largely made up of US and European financial investors (primarily opportunity and private equity funds).

Private Equity Real Estate recently named Mr. Samson as one of the most influential 100 people globally in the real estate private equity industry over the past decade and their readers voted his team law firm of the year for Europe transactions. He has also been named as one of the “Hot 100” movers and shakers of the legal profession in The Lawyer magazine’s survey. When assembling their dream team of 40 lawyers to start a new “magic circle” firm, Legal Business nominated Mr. Samson as head of their fantasy firm’s real estate group. He is featured as a leading real estate lawyer in the most recent edition of Legal Experts (published by Legal Business) and is regularly ranked among London’s leading real estate finance lawyers in Chambers’ UK Guide to the Legal Profession and the Legal 500 UK. He was recently identified by Chambers UK 2022 as a leading lawyer in the fields of Real Estate: Big Ticket and Real Estate Finance, and he is recognised in Who’s Who Legal: both for Real Estate 2022 and Hospitality 2021. The 2022 edition of Legal 500 UK includes him in the ‘Hall of Fame’ listing for both Commercial Property: Investment and for Property Finance. In addition, he is recognized by the 2023 edition of Best Lawyers in the United Kingdom as a leading lawyer for Real Estate, Real Estate Finance & Financial Services and also ranked as a ‘notable practitioner’ for Real Estate, M&A and Private Equity in the 2022 edition of IFLR1000.

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Mr. Samson spent 10 years at and was a partner with a major London law firm, where he both headed that firm’s North America Group and was a member of their Property Finance Group. He also practiced for several years (during the early 1990s) with Weil Gotshal & Manges in New York as part of an exchange programme.

Mr. Samson is a former member of the editorial board of the Property Law Journal and has published in the Real Estate Finance Journal. He is also a member of the NYU London-New York Real Estate Roundtable and the Urban Land Institute and is a regular speaker at conferences on real estate private equity and banking and finance topics.