Five Questions with Daniel Daeniker, LLM’96
Daniel Daeniker is the Managing Partner of Homburger, on of Switzerland's biggest law firms. His practice focuses on mergers & acquisitions, particularly cross-border transactions, and on corporate governance. Other areas of work include capital markets law, particularly equity offerings and IPOs, and financial services regulation.
1. What is a favorite Law School memory?
There are many of them. But I still vividly remember the night we celebrated the engagement of Frederic Depoortere from Belgium and Ingrid Rossi from Mexico. The two had met in our LL.M. class and subsequently got married. (They still are.) Everyone was overjoyed. At the end of the evening, the entire class danced and sang to the tune of La Macarena.
2. Is there a particular course or program that you participated in while attending The Law School, or an idea or theory, which has proven particularly helpful in your work?
What I enjoyed most about classes in The Law School was learning matters outside of the curriculum.
The bankruptcy/corporate reorganizations class of Randy Picker was the best teaching I ever got in applied corporate finance.
In Corporations, Dan Fischel brought home to us everything we needed to know about what can go wrong in a corporate boardroom. And I have come to see much of it in the last twenty years.
Finally, Racism and the Law with one senior lecturer Barack Obama brought an entirely new world to me, plus face-to-face to a figure who later made history (unrelated to the class).
3. Describe the bond you developed with fellow LLM classmates. How do you stay connected with them?
We have a habit of meeting every 10 years for a reunion. In 2006 and 2016, more than half of the class showed up.
For exchanges in between, we email, send around updated address lists, and enjoy the gossip (most of it fabricated) in the Law School Record by our class correspondent Stephan Wilske. Finally, whenever there is a fundraising effort, I try to cajole my classmates into contributing.
4. In your free time, what were some activities you liked to do during your year in the City of Chicago?
My wife and I went for long walks in all of Chicago's parks, had a season ticket for the Chicago Symphony, and frequently met with fellow LL.M.s. And shortly after graduation, our daughter Sophie was born in the U of C Hospital.
5. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I have been associated with Homburger, with a few short breaks in between, for 29 years, and I still enjoy what I am doing. Every day is a new challenge.
I especially enjoy solving complex problems for clients and walking the talk with partners and associates in our firm. Acting as a lecturer in the University of Zurich comes as a bonus.
Career
- Managing Partner at Homburger, 2013-present
- Head of the Corporate | M&A practice Group, 2009-2014
- Lecturer in Law at the University of Zurich, 2001
- Partner at Homburger, 2000-2009
- The Law School, University of Chicago (LLM), 1996
- University of Zurich (Dr. iur.), 1992
- Associate at Homburger, 1991
- Bar admission, 1990
Bar registration
At all Swiss courts
Hometown
TBD
Languages
German, English, French, Spanish