No. of offices | 28 [1] |
---|---|
No. of attorneys | 3,078 [1] |
No. of employees | ≈7,000 |
Major practice areas | General corporate, mergers & acquisitions, banking and finance, litigation, antitrust |
Key people | Richard Trobman, Chair and Managing Partner |
Revenue | US$5.5 billion (March 2022) [1] |
Date founded | February 8, 1934 |
Company type | Limited liability partnership |
Website | www |
Latham & Watkins LLP is an American multinational law firm. Founded in 1934 in Los Angeles, California, Latham is the second-largest law firm in the world by revenue. [1] As of 2022, Latham is also one of the most profitable law firms in the world, with profits per partner exceeding US$5.7 million. [2]
The firm was founded in January 1934 in Los Angeles, California, by Dana Latham and Paul Watkins. Latham's practice focused on state and federal tax law, and he eventually served as Commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service under President Dwight Eisenhower. Watkins's practice focused primarily on labor. At first, the firm grew slowly, with only 19 attorneys employed as of 1960. [3]
As of 2020, the company is known for lobbying and litigating against actions to mitigate climate change. [4] [ verification needed ] According to the Law Students for Climate Accountability, "Latham & Watkins is the only firm to be in the Top 5 Worst Firms for both transactions and litigation exacerbating climate change." [5]
Amid the global recession in 2009, the firm laid off 190 lawyers and 250 paralegal and support staff, representing twelve percent of the firm's total associates and ten percent of the support staff. [6] At a time when many firms were conducting layoffs, the term "Lathamed" became legal slang for being laid off. [7]
At one time Latham & Watkins was considered to be the world's largest law firm by total revenue when, in February 2018, it surpassed $3 billion in annual revenue. [8]
As of February 2021 [update] , Latham's largest office is in New York City, with more than 450 lawyers. [9] The firm claims it is the only fully integrated multinational law firm with no single headquarters. [10] In 2007, Latham became the first American law firm to attain more than $2 billion in yearly revenue, and in 2018 it was the first law firm to report more than US$3 billion in gross revenue. [11] [12] [13] As of 2018, it was briefly the highest-grossing law firm in the world, but has since lost the number one spot to Kirkland & Ellis. [14] [15]
Latham opened its first office in Moscow in 1992, and thereafter represented a number of Russian state-owned companies. [16] These clients include the state-owned bank VTB and the natural gas producer Novatek. [17] Latham ended its Russia operations in March 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. [18] In August 2023, Latham announced the decision to close its Shanghai office amid consolidation of its operations in China. [19] [20]
In November 2023, amid a wave of antisemitic incidents at elite U.S. law schools, Latham & Watkins was among a group of major law firms who sent a letter to top law school deans warning them that an escalation in incidents targeting Jewish students would have corporate hiring consequences. The letter said "We look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses." [21] The letter has been denounced by a coalition of Muslim bar associations as contributing to Islamophobia and a climate of fear in the legal community. [22]
In February 2024, Latham cut off its Hong Kong-based lawyers' access to content in its U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Asia databases. [23] [24]
Latham was ranked as the #1 firm in the Am Law 100 rankings for 2017. [25] In 2021, the firm received the highest number of practice and lawyer rankings from Chambers and Partners . [26] Dubbed an "A-List All-Star" by The American Lawyer , the firm is one of three firms to appear on the A-List each year since its inception in 2003. [27] Vault.com named Latham one of the top five most prestigious firms in the United States and the most prestigious firm in Southern California. [28]
King & Spalding LLP is an American multinational corporate law firm that is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with offices located in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It has over 1,300 lawyers in 23 offices globally. It is Am Law 100, Global 30, and white-shoe firm.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates, typically shortened to Skadden, is an American multinational law firm headquartered in New York City. The company is known for its work on company mergers and takeovers.
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Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis is the largest law firm in the world by revenue and the seventh-largest by number of attorneys. It was the first law firm in the world to reach US$4 billion in annual revenue.
Bracewell LLP is an international law firm based in Houston, Texas, that began in 1945. The firm has approximately 350 lawyers, and has United States offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Seattle, Dallas and Austin, as well as offices in Dubai, Paris and London.
Sean M. Berkowitz is a former director of the Department of Justice's Enron Task Force. He prosecuted former employees of Enron who were accused of white collar crimes, principally accounting fraud. Most significantly, he was the lead prosecutor in the joint trial of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. In 2006, shortly after securing guilty verdicts against both, Berkowitz left the Department of Justice to become a partner at Latham & Watkins LLP in Chicago.
Philip Jonathan Perry is an American attorney and was a political appointee in the administration of George W. Bush. He was acting associate attorney general at the Department of Justice, general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security. He is a partner at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., and has served as lead counsel on many matters of national importance. He has handled matters before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and U.S. District Courts across the country. He is known both for his work litigating biotechnology issues and his work on constitutional and federal regulatory matters. Perry was named a "Litigation Trailblazer" by The National Law Journal in 2018 for his "remarkable successes" in litigation, and has seen continued successes in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, winning cases in both federal appellate and trial courts. He also has substantial experience with Congressional investigations: he served as Senate Counsel to the Thompson Committee in 1997, and has also dealt with such investigations during his time in the Executive Branch and private practice. He is the husband of former Representative Liz Cheney and the son-in-law of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Dechert LLP is a multinational American law firm of more than 900 lawyers with practices in corporate and securities, complex litigation, finance and real estate, financial services, asset management, and private equity. In 2021, the firm raised revenues by 25%, with a total of $1.3 billion. On Law.com's 2022 Global 200 survey, Dechert ranked as the 41st highest grossing law firm in the world.
Winston & Strawn LLP is an international law firm headquartered in Chicago. It has more than 900 attorneys spread across ten offices in the United States and six offices in Europe, Asia and South America. Founded in 1853, it is one of the largest and oldest law firms in Chicago.
Paul Hastings LLP is an American multinational law firm with over 1,000 lawyers in 23 offices throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. The firm represents a client base in finance, M&A, private equity, and litigation.
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP is an American international law firm with approximately 1,100 attorneys, headquartered in New York City. With a gross annual revenue in excess of $1.8 billion, it is among the world's largest law firms according to The American Lawyer's AmLaw 100 survey.
Venable LLP is an American law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is the largest law firm in the state of Maryland. Founded in 1900 by Richard Venable in Baltimore, Venable operates 13 offices across the United States and employs about 850 professionals specializing in regulatory, litigation, corporate, and investigations matters.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1890, the firm has more than 1,900 attorneys and 1,000 staff in 21 offices across the world, including North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. It is one of the largest and most profitable law firms in the world. The firm is known for its litigation practice, and in particular its strength in appellate law.
Kathryn H. Ruemmler is an attorney who formerly served as Principal Deputy White House Counsel and then White House Counsel to President Barack Obama. Previously a partner at Latham and Watkins co-chairing its white-collar defense group, Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs in 2020 as a Partner and Global Head of Regulatory Affairs. In 2021, she was promoted to Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel.
Cooley LLP is an American international law firm, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices worldwide. The firm's practice areas include corporate, litigation, intellectual property, fund formation, public markets, employment, life sciences, clean technology, real estate, financial services, retail, regulatory and energy.
Leslie Ragon Caldwell is an American attorney, who served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2014 to 2017. She has spent the majority of her professional career handling federal criminal cases, as both a prosecutor and as defense attorney. Caldwell served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York from 1987 to 1998, after which she was recruited by then US Attorney Robert Mueller to serve as Chief of the Criminal Division and Chief of the Securities Fraud Section of the United States Attorney's office for the Northern District of California; she served from 1999 to 2002. In September 2017, she became a partner at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, in San Francisco, CA. In late 2022, Caldwell retired from her partnership at Latham & Watkins.
Andrew A. Weissmann is an American attorney and professor. He was an Assistant United States Attorney from 1991 to 2002, when he prosecuted high-profile organized crime cases. He served as a lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller's Special Counsel's Office (2017–2019), as Chief of the Fraud Section in the Department of Justice (2015–2017) and is currently a professor at NYU Law School.
Thomas John Heiden is a US-based Trial lawyer and Professor of Intensive Trial Advocacy at Cornell University Law School.