Headquarters | 51 Louisiana Ave NW, Washington, D.C. 20001 |
---|---|
No. of offices | 40 [1] |
No. of attorneys | 2,302 [1] |
Major practice areas | Full service |
Revenue | $2.5 billion (2022) [1] |
Date founded | 1893 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. | (as Blandin & Rice)
Company type | General partnership [2] |
Website | jonesday.com |
Jones Day is an American multinational law firm based in Washington, D.C. As of 2023, it is one of the largest law firms in the United States, with 2,302 attorneys, and among the highest-grossing in the world with revenues of $2.5 billion. [1] Founded in 1893, the firm was originally headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. It has represented over half of the companies in the Fortune 500, including Goldman Sachs, General Motors, McDonald's, and Bridgestone. [3] [4] Jones Day has also represented the campaign of former president Donald Trump. [5]
Many attorneys from Jones Day have served as federal officials or judges, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, former White House Counsel Don McGahn, former U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, former Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras, and U.S. court of appeals judges Jeffrey Sutton, Gregory G. Katsas, Timothy B. Dyk, Chad Readler, and Eric E. Murphy. [6] [7] [8]
Jones Day has historically focused on corporate law, but has increasingly shifted to aiding the Republican Party and the American conservative movement since the 2000. [9] This shift began when Stephen Brogan became managing partner of Jones Day in 2003. [9] Subsequently, the firm increasingly took on ideologically charged cases and causes. During the Barack Obama administration, Jones Day challenged the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. [9] The firm also served as outside counsel for the Trump 2016 and Trump 2020 campaigns. [10]
Jones Day was founded in Cleveland in 1893 as Blandin & Rice by two partners, Edwin J. Blandin and William Lowe Rice. [11] Frank Ginn joined the firm in 1899, and it changed its name to Blandin, Rice & Ginn. [12] Rice was murdered in August 1910. [13] In 1912, Thomas H. Hogsett joined the firm as partner, and [12] it became Blandin, Hogsett & Ginn that year, [14] and Tolles, Hogsett, Ginn & Morley a year later after the retirement of Judge Blandin and the addition of partners Sheldon H. Tolles and John C. Morley. [12] After Morley retired, in 1928, the firm adopted the name Tolles, Hogsett & Ginn. [12]
In its early years, the firm was known for representing major industries in the Cleveland area, including Standard Oil and several railroad and utility companies. [15]
In November 1938, then managing partner Thomas Jones led the merger of Tolles, Hogsett & Ginn with litigation-focused firm Day, Young, Veach & LeFever to create Jones, Day, Cockley & Reavis. The merger was effective January 1, 1939. [16] The firm's Washington, D.C., office was opened in 1946, becoming the firm's first office outside Ohio. [17] In 1967, the firm merged with D.C. firm Pogue & Neal to become Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue. [18]
Jones Day has a reputation for representing companies against labor unions. [19] [20] [21]
The international expansion of Jones Day began in 1986 when the firm merged with boutique law firm Surrey & Morse, a firm of 75 attorneys with international offices in New York City, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C. In the following years, the firm expanded to Hong Kong, Brussels, Tokyo, Taipei, and Frankfurt. [22]
Jones Day has historically focused on corporate law, but has increasingly shifted to aiding the Republican Party and the American conservative movement since the 2000. [9] This shift began when Stephen Brogan became managing partner of Jones Day in 2003. [9] Subsequently, the firm increasingly took on ideologically charged cases and causes. During the Barack Obama administration, Jones Day challenged the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. [9]
During the first Donald Trump administration, Jones Day helped the administration to dismantle the administrative state, combat early voting, and place a citizenship question on the census. [9] The firm provided services to Donald Trump for his personal legal problems, as well as helped the Donald Trump 2016 campaign amid investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. [9] This defense included trying to control which documents to hand over to investigators and which staff members to make available for interviews. [9]
Jones Day partner Don McGahn, who was previously a member of the Federal Election Commission, served as counsel for the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and was later nominated to serve as Trump's White House Counsel. [23] [24] As of March 2017, at least 14 Jones Day attorneys had been appointed to work for the Trump administration. [25]
Jones Day was outside counsel for the Trump 2016 and Trump 2020 campaigns. [26] From 2015 to November 2020, Jones Day received more than $20 million in fees from the Trump campaigns. [27] Jones Day earned more than $4.5 million for Trump 2020 campaign work between January 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020. [26]
In 2020, Jones Day was hired by Trump in his legal fight to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden. [28] The firm worked for Trump in trying to have courts toss out Pennsylvania mail votes. [9] According to The New York Times, Jones Day "was giving voice — and legal backing — to the president’s unsubstantiated fear-mongering about the possibility of an election tainted by fraud." [9] However, the firm said it "is not representing President Trump, his campaign, or any affiliated party in any litigation alleging voter fraud." Jones Day also said it "is not representing any entity in any litigation challenging or contesting the results of the 2020 general election" and that "media reports to the contrary are false." [29] According to The New York Times, Jones Day's post-election justifications for its role in the 2020 election "blurred a basic fact: Jones Day and its lawyers were trying to stop votes from being counted, all in an effort to serve the client." [9]
After Trump left office, Jones Day hired a significant number of former Trump administration lawyers, including Don McGahn and Noel Francisco. [30]
When Trump became president again in January 2025, the Trump administration hired Jones Day partner Brett Shumate to lead its Civil Division. [31] One of Shumate's first actions was to defend an executive order by Trump that sought to rescind birthright citizenship. [32] [33] Shumate said that Trump's order was constitutional to which Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said, "Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind." [33]
As of 2018, Jones Day was the fifth largest law firm in the U.S. and the 13th highest grossing law firm in the world. [1] It is currently headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The firm compensates each associate (after their first year) uniquely, based on the quality of their work and jurisdiction. [34] Unlike many peer firms, Jones Day does not pay a year-end or mid-year bonus, compensating associates entirely with salary. [34] Its attorneys' salaries are not public and are not determined solely by class year. The firm has long said that its "black box" compensation system breeds collegiality, and that its associates—even though they are not paid a bonus—generally earn the same as, or more than, associates at other major firms. [34] New associates have a starting salary of US$225,000. [35] Some associates have said that they are under-compensated compared to their peers at other firms, sometimes by tens of thousands of dollars, and that their compensation is much lower than what they were promised when they interviewed. [36]
The firm's attorneys have argued more than 40 cases before the United States Supreme Court. [37] Some of the firm's notable clients and cases include:
BTI has ranked Jones Day as the only firm to earn "Most Recommended Law Firm" for 20 consecutive years and also ranked it as "Fearsome Foursome" nine times since 2011. [89] [90]
Law360 named Jones Day a "Ceiling Smasher" in 2022 as one of the top 10 firms having the highest representation of women in equity partnership and as M&A Group of the Year in 2015. [91] [92]
The American Lawyer named Jones Day winner of the Litigation Department of the Year in 2017. [93]
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It is not uncommon for partners at corporate law firms to dabble in politics. Nor is it rare for a firm itself to throw its weight behind causes on the left or the right... What sets Jones Day apart is the degree to which it penetrated the federal government under Trump and is now taking advantage of a judicial revolution that it helped set in motion.
Former California Congresswoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke has been named a partner in the Los Angeles office of the law firm Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.
After leaving the Supreme Court, Justice McGee Brown joined the Columbus office of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue as a partner practicing business and tort litigation.
Former Jones Day New York partner David Carden served for two years as the United States' first ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Menon left to co-found Wong Partnership in 1992, and also worked at Rajah & Tann and Jones Day in subsequent roles.
Majoras had joined the firm's Chicago office as a litigation associate after a clerkship at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Prior to her government service, Majoras was a partner in Jones Day's antitrust section.
Mr. O'Brien had been with the firm of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, an international law firm, from January 1986 to January 1990, where he served as partner-in-charge of the firm's telecommunications section.
Gov. Rick Snyder announced Thursday that he had chosen Kevyn Orr, a partner in the law and restructuring Jones Day firm, as Detroit's emergency manager.
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