Howrey

Last updated
Howrey LLP
HowreyLLP.png
Headquarters Washington, D. C.
No. of offices16
No. of attorneys500+
Major practice areas antitrust law
intellectual property law
global litigation
Key peopleRobert F. Ruyak
(Managing Partner & CEO)
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$573 million (2009) [1]
Date founded1956
FounderJack Howrey
Bill Simon
Hal Baker
Dave Murchison
Company type Limited liability partnership
DissolvedMarch 2011 (Bankruptcy)
Website www.howrey.com

Howrey LLP was a global law firm that practiced antitrust, global litigation and intellectual property law. At its peak Howrey had more than 700 attorneys in 17 locations worldwide. [2]

Contents

History

The firm was founded as Howrey, Simon, Baker, & Murchison in July 1956 by four antitrust attorneys: Jack Howrey, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bill Simon, Hal Baker and Dave Murchison. It was the first national antitrust firm. It hired its first patent lawyer partner in 1972, and by 1985, Howrey numbered 150 attorneys with a list of clients across the country.

In 2000, Howrey & Simon merged with Arnold, White & Durkee, an intellectual property specialty firm founded in 1956 in Houston, Texas with offices in six cities and 120 attorneys. This combination resulted in the new firm of Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White, with 350 lawyers, one of the largest antitrust and intellectual property practices in the world, and laid the groundwork for the firm’s expansion overseas. Between 2000 and 2008, the firm expanded to more than 700 attorneys and 17 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Howrey provided over 45,000 hours of free legal assistance to more than 250 pro bono clients. The firm was awarded the 2003 Thomas L. Sager Award by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association for its commitment to promoting diversity in the workplace.

Partner departures and dissolution

About 60 attorneys departed from Howrey in the year before January 2011, including co-chairs of the firm's antitrust and litigation practices. [3] Winston & Strawn reportedly considered merger with Howrey in late January, [3] but instead offered to take most of Howrey's partners. [4] The firm continued to lose partners as a group of 11 attorneys from Howrey's Chicago office moved to Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, including the office's managing partner and the class action defense practice leader. [5]

On March 9, 2011, the Executive Committee of Howrey LLP announced that, pursuant to a vote by the firm’s partnership, it would dissolve the existing Howrey partnership, effective March 15, 2011 and commence an orderly wind down of its affairs. On March 31, 2011 Howrey LLP closed its doors laying off all of its employees. In April 2011, Trepel McGrane Greenfield LLP, a law firm headquartered in San Jose, California, representing a group of alleged creditors of Howrey LLP, filed an involuntary chapter 7 bankruptcy petition against the law firm with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. That involuntary chapter 7 case was converted to a chapter 11 bankruptcy case in June 2011 at the request of the law firm. [6] On July 6, 2011, Howrey filed schedules of assets and liabilities with the bankruptcy court which listed assets of $138.7 million and liabilities of $107 million. [7]

Locations

Related Research Articles

A boutique law firm is a collection of attorneys typically organized in a limited liability partnership or professional corporation specializing in a niche area of law practice. Although a general practice law firm includes a variety of unrelated practice areas within a single firm, a boutique firm specializes in one or a select few practice areas. There may be some confusion as legal publications may refer to any small- or mid-sized firm as a boutique, though generally firms with fewer than 100 attorneys would count. Boutique should apply to those firms that focus on particular areas, regardless of size, though they are typically smaller, with exception to a few firms such as Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner or Fish & Richardson with over 400 attorneys.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP is a global white shoe law firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The firm employs approximately 800 attorneys throughout 23 offices around the world.

Proskauer Rose LLP is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1875 and currently employs more than 725 attorneys in twelve offices worldwide.

Pepper Hamilton LLP was a U.S.-based law firm with 14 offices and around 500 attorneys. The firm was ranked among the 100 largest firms by revenue in the United States and was one of the 100 most prestigious firms according to Vault's surveys of the legal industry. The firm's largest practices included defense of pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers in product liability litigation and related matters, patent enforcement and prosecution, corporate transactions, and commercial litigation.

Nixon Peabody Law firm

Nixon Peabody LLP is a Global 100 law firm, with more than 700 attorneys collaborating across major practice areas in cities across the U.S. as well as international offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, London,. The firm's U.S. office locations include: Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Albany, Buffalo, Manchester, Rochester, and Providence. The firm ranks #67 on Vault's top 100 law firms and #75 on the American Lawyer 100.

Kaye Scholer was a law firm founded in 1917 by Benjamin Kaye and Jacob Scholer. The firm had more than 450 attorneys in nine offices located in the cities of Chicago, Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, New York City (headquarters), Shanghai, Palo Alto, Washington, D.C., and West Palm Beach.

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP is an international law firm founded in 1836 and is one of the oldest firms in the United States. It operates in New York; Washington; Los Angeles; Chicago; Stamford, Connecticut; Parsippany, New Jersey; Houston, Texas; and San Diego, California. It also offers legal services through an affiliate relationship with Mumbai-based Fortitude Law Associates.

Winston & Strawn American law firm

Winston & Strawn LLP is an international law firm. Headquartered in Chicago, it has nearly 800 attorneys in ten offices in the United States and six offices in Europe and Asia. Founded in 1853, it is one of the largest and oldest law firms in Chicago.

Honigman LLP is a law firm founded in Detroit with over 330 attorneys in eight offices. The firm ranked 135th on The American Lawyer's 2019 AmLaw 200 rankings of U.S. law firms.

Chadbourne & Parke LLP, founded in 1902 by Thomas L. Chadbourne, was a 400 lawyer firm, which operated from 12 offices, in ten countries. Chadbourne was probably best known for its global practice in project finance and energy, international insurance and reinsurance practice, multi-jurisdictional litigation in courts from Rhode Island to Russia, and corporate transactions.

Thelen LLP, formerly known as Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner was a bicoastal American law firm formed by two mergers between California and New York-based law firms. The firm peaked at roughly 600 attorneys in 2006, and had 500 early in 2008, with attorneys with offices in eight cities in the United States, England and China. By the time of its decision to dissolve in late October 2008, it had shrunk to 400 attorneys through layoffs and attrition. Thelen was known for its preeminent construction practice which dates back to the 1930s and the local association between the law firm and contractors and developers of large hydroelectric dam projects. The construction practice offered regulatory, transactional and dispute resolution support. It was also known for its energy expertise, particularly in the electricity regulatory area, as well as for legal advice concerning technology and outsourcing.

Heller Ehrman

Heller Ehrman LLP was an international law firm of more than 730 attorneys in 15 offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Heller Ehrman was founded in San Francisco in 1890 and had additional offices located in most of the major financial centers around the world including New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Marc Stuart Dreier is a former American lawyer who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2009 for committing investment fraud using a Ponzi scheme. He is scheduled to be released from FCI Sandstone on October 26, 2026. On May 11, 2009, he pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to eight charges of fraud, which included one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, one count of money laundering, one count of securities fraud, and five counts of wire fraud in a scheme to sell more than $950 million in fictitious promissory notes. Civil charges, filed in December 2008 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are pending. The 2011 documentary Unraveled states that "Drier stole over $740 million from 4 clients, 4 individuals, and 13 hedge funds".

Keck, Mahin & Cate was a law firm based in Chicago, Illinois that was founded in 1886 and stopped operations in 1997.

Dan K. Webb American lawyer

Daniel K. Webb is an American lawyer and public official. He is the co-executive chairman of the international law firm of Winston & Strawn. He is a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and previously served as the Special Counsel in the Iran-Contra affair. As the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, he was the top federal law enforcement official in the city of Chicago on behalf of the United States Department of Justice. As U.S. Attorney, Webb led Operation Greylord and successfully prosecuted 76 corrupt judges, police officers, court clerks, and lawyers.

Jeffrey L. Kessler is a partner at the international law firm Winston & Strawn, where he also serves as co-executive chairman and co-chair of the firm's antitrust/competition and sports law practices. Until May 2012, he was the global litigation chair at the international law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, where he was also the co-chair of the sports litigation practice group and served on the firm's executive and leadership committees. His major clients include the National Football League Players Association, the National Basketball Players Association, William Morris Endeavor, Activision Blizzard, Avanci, the Major League Baseball Players Association, the players on the United States Women’s National Soccer Team, NTN Corporation, and Panasonic Corporation.

Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, LLP, commonly referred to as Gordon & Rees, is an AmLaw 100 law firm based in the United States, with more than 1,000 lawyers practicing in all 50 states.

Leslie Gordon Fagen is an American litigator. He is a senior partner at the international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

Lindquist & Vennum LLP was a law firm of approximately 170 attorneys that provided corporate finance, transactional and litigation services for clients from offices in Minnesota, Colorado, and South Dakota. The firm was formed in 1968 when Lindquist, Magnuson & Glennon combined with Vennum, Newhall, Ackman & Goetz. As of January 1, 2018, the firm merged with and took the name of Ballard Spahr.

Thomas M. Melsheimer American lawyer

Thomas M. Melsheimer is a trial lawyer and a partner at the international law firm of Winston & Strawn, where he also serves as managing partner of its Dallas office and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. His trial experience encompasses both civil and criminal litigation. On the civil side, he has tried to verdict cases involving patent infringement, trade secrets, insider trading, antitrust, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, product liability, and False Claims Act (FCA) violations. On the criminal side, he has tried to verdict cases involving bank fraud, public corruption, copyright infringement, aggravated sexual assault, and kidnapping. His clients include a variety of high-net-worth individuals and notable corporations, including the Dallas Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Texas Instruments. Melsheimer is the co-author of a best-selling book on trial advocacy, On the Jury Trial: Principles and Practices for Effective Advocacy which was called a "book every lawyer should read", by trial lawyer Michael S. Tigar.

References

  1. ↑ AM Law 100 Gross Revenue
  2. ↑ Pearlstein, Steven. "Why Howrey law firm could not hold it together".
  3. 1 2 Steven R. Strahler (Jan 25, 2011). "Winston & Strawn talks merger with Howrey, but opts for hiring away attorneys". Crain's Chicago Business .
  4. ↑ Petra Pasternak (Jan 31, 2011). "Winston Makes Offers to Most Howrey Partners". The Recorder.
  5. ↑ Ashby Jones (Feb 2, 2011). "The Howrey Exodus Continues: 11 Lawyers Bolt to Morgan Lewis". Wall Street Journal law blog.
  6. ↑ "Howrey LLP Involuntary Bankruptcy Converted to Chapter 11; Venue Transfer To Be Considered Later This Month". Bankruptcy News & Analysis Law Blog. June 8, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Howrey LLP Files First Monthly Operating Report, Assets Decrease by Almost $85 Million (or 61%) From Schedules". Bankruptcy News & Analysis Law Blog. July 28, 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.