Remembering Carl Salans

One of the founders of the law firm that bore his name, Salans (pictured on the right of the above photo alongside fellow founders of Salans, Hertzfeld & Heilbronn, Eliane Heilbronn and Jeffrey Hertzfeld) was a distinguished specialist in international law and arbitration and handled some of the most geopolitically important cases of the post-war era.

Born Carl Fredric Salans on March 13th 1933 in Chicago Heights, Illinois, he developed an interest in international affairs from an early age. Educated at Harvard, Cambridge and the University of Chicago, Carl Salans began his career in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the US State Department in 1959.

Over the next decade and a half, he was involved in some of the most sensitive geopolitical issues of the day; the Pentagon Papers affair, the Geneva Conference on Laos Neutrality and the Vietnam peace talks. He also participated in numerous international treaty negotiations, including as head of the US delegation to the UNESCO conference that established the World Heritage Convention.

From Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn to Dentons
After leaving the State Department in 1972, in disagreement over the position of the US delegation during the Vietnam peace talks, Carl Salans joined the law firm of Samuel Pisar in Paris. There he met Eliane Heilbronn and Jeffrey Hertzfeld, with whom he founded the international law firm Salans, Hertzfeld & Heilbronn in 1978. He created the firm's international arbitration practice and has mentored generations of young lawyers. A few years later, the law firm transitioned to Salans before joining forces, in 2013, with Fraser Milner Casgrain and SNR Denton to form Dentons.

A firm believer in the power of relationships, Carl took the time to get to know his clients and colleagues on a personal level and was always available to listen and offer advice

Carl Salans has served as an arbitrator in the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. He served for several years as a US member of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, then as its Vice Chairman, before chairing the Court in 2008, after the departure of Pierre Tercier and before the chairmanship of John Beechey, which he prepared.

Noted humanist and “soft power”
Carl Salans is remembered not only as a great professional but also as a man of values, deeply committed to people. A firm believer in the power of relationships, he took the time to get to know his clients and colleagues on a personal level and was always available to listen and offer advice.

Former Dentons partner Theodore Matheny remembers Salans as a man of great grace and curiosity: “Like so many others at Dentons Paris, I met Carl in his office. Sitting together at his small round table, he would quickly steer the conversation to my personal interests, family situation and what had brought me to France. Indeed, for him, the human side of the profession was just as important, if not more so, than the technical side. He was like that with all the members of the firm, whatever their role.

"I will never forget Carl's remarks at the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the firm in 2018. After warmly thanking the partners, he turned to what is so often overlooked or unrecognized: the dedication and hard work of all the firm's lawyers and staff, and behind them, the support of the spouses and families who help make their dedication and work possible. The words that define Carl for me: professional excellence and integrity, humility and humanity.”

Pascal Chadenet, a Dentons Corporate partner, remembers Salans' modesty, lucidity, loyalty, and astonishing writing abilities: "I didn't work much with Carl - he did mostly arbitration and I did M&A. We did have a few cases together, though. I was often struck by the immense quality of his writing. His sentences were incredibly concise and clear. He wrote in a few lines what other lawyers would have written in three pages.

When he was still an active partner in the firm, every three months he would send a message to all the associates who had just joined the firm, inviting them to come and see him. These young lawyers would spend half an hour with him and would always come away enthusiastic, proud to have met him and to have heard him share his vision of the firm.

Carl's legacy at Dentons is that we were - and still are - among the world's leading multinational law firms. That was the vision of the founders of Salans, on a European scale, and it is still our vision, now on a global scale.”

Jean-Christophe Honlet, a former partner and head of international arbitration at Dentons, remembers Carl Salans as the one from whom he learned the most in arbitration: “He was consulted by some of the biggest arbitration names around. He exuded a natural authority without the slightest pomp – he never looked for the limelight. He naturally knew how to be listened to and respected as counsel, arbitrator or within the ICC Court of Arbitration, something John Beechey rightly paid tribute to as his ‘soft power’.”