Sonia E. Bennett

Sonia focuses her practice on complex executive compensation and employee benefits matters in public and private mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions. Sonia’s work includes negotiating, reviewing and drafting transactional documents and identifying issues arising under the Internal Revenue Code, ERISA, applicable labor laws, and applicable exchange regulations.

Before joining Linklaters, Sonia worked in the Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits practice in the New York office of another leading international law firm.

Work highlights:

Sonia has advised on transactions including:

• CrowdStrike: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of its acquisition of Adaptive Shield.
• JD Sports: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of its acquisition of Hibbett, Inc. for an enterprise value of approximately US$1.1bn.
• PhenomeX: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of its US$108m sale to Bruker Corporation.
• Jungheinrich AG: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of its US$375m acquisition of Storage Solutions, Inc.
• Berkeley Lights: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of its acquisition of IsoPlexis.
• BP: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of its US$4.1bn take-private of Archaea Energy.
• AeroClean Technologies, Inc: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects in connection with its all-stock merger with Molekule, Inc.
• AmerisourceBergen: advising on the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of its US$1.3bn acquisition of PharmaLex.

*Includes matters handled prior to joining Linklaters.

In 2025, Sonia was honored as one of the Top 57 Most Influential Black Attorneys by the Northeast Black Law Student Association, a distinction that recognizes the outstanding achievements and contributions of Black attorneys who have made a meaningful impact on the legal industry and their communities.

Sonia first became involved with the Northeast Black Law Student Association in 2014, when she served as the founding president of her undergraduate institution’s first pre-law chapter.  Since then, Sonia has remained deeply involved with the organization, championing its mission to increase the number of culturally responsible Black and minority attorneys.

Sonia holds a Juris Doctor from Albany Law School.  During law school, Sonia served on the Moot Court Board, as the Associate for the Donna J. Morse Client Counseling & Negotiations Competition and the Alumni Relations Liaison for the Northeast Black Law Student Association.

Sonia obtained her undergraduate degree in International Business and Business Administration from the New York State University at Plattsburgh.