No. of offices 46 (July 2016) Revenue 950 million USD (2016) Profit per equity partner 845,000 USD (2016) | Founded 1890 Number of offices 46 (July 2016) | |
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No. of attorneys Approx. 1,500 (March 2016) Key people Mark J. Ruehlmann (Chairman and Global CEO) Date founded 1890 in Cleveland as Squire, Sanders & Dempsey1887 in Leeds as Hammond Suddard1962 in Washington D.C. as Patton Boggs Subsidiaries Squire Sanders Peña Prieto Gamundi Profiles | ||
Squire Patton Boggs is an international law firm with 46 offices in 21 countries. It was formed in 2014 by the merger of multinational law firm Squire Sanders with Washington, D.C. based Patton Boggs. It is one of the 30 largest law firms in the world by total headcount and gross revenue, twelfth largest firm in the UK by revenue, and one of the top 10 by number of countries occupied. It is also one of the largest US-headquartered law firms in Asia. Its largest offices are in Washington, London and Cleveland, each having more than 100 lawyers.
Contents
- Squire Sanders Dempsey
- Hammonds
- Patton Boggs
- Squire Patton Boggs
- Locations
- Squire Sanders
- Notable cases and representations
- References
Squire Patton Boggs is currently the third-largest lobbying firm in the U.S. after Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. The lobbying arm, long managed by Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., is currently managed by former United States Senators John Breaux and Trent Lott.
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey
The firm was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1890 as Squire, Sanders & Dempsey.
Until the 1990s, it was primarily an Ohio law firm, with only small offices in several other US cities and in Brussels. It was one of the first US law firms to expand into Eastern Europe in the wake of the Cold War, and under the leadership of firm chairman Thomas Stanton, opened several offices in the former Soviet bloc region during the 1990s, taking on a key role in the privatization of state enterprises in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine and Poland. It subsequently absorbed a number of other legal practices including several Pacific Rim offices of Graham & James and the Florida-based law firm of Steel Hector & Davis. The firm also made overtures toward mergers with Denton Wilde Sapte, Seyfarth Shaw and Bryan Cave under Stanton's leadership.
Hammonds
Hammonds was an international law firm headquartered in Leeds, United Kingdom, with offices in Beijing, Berlin, Birmingham, Brussels, Hong Kong, Leeds, Madrid, Manchester, Munich and Paris. Hammonds' origins dated back to the founding of a legal practice in Yorkshire in 1887. Although it was a major firm in Yorkshire and the West Midlands region, it did not open a London office until 1991.
In 2000 Hammond Suddards and Edge Ellison merged, forming Hammond Suddards Edge, at that time the 11th-largest law firm in the UK. The firm's rapid expansion left it £30 million in debt in the early 2000s and led to a downsizing through 2005. The firm was ranked 20th in the UK by turnover in The Lawyer UK 100 2006, with a turnover of £132 million. Throughout 2005-2009, the firm underwent significant restructuring under the stewardship of Managing Partner Peter Crossley. As of 2009, the partnership consisted of approximately 180 partners and more than 1,000 employees. Hammonds converted to a Limited Liability Partnership in May 2008.
Hammonds and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey announced that they were in merger talks in August 2010. The partnerships of both firms voted in favor of a merger in November 2010, and it was completed on January 1, 2011, forming the Squire Sanders Swiss association. The merger with Hammonds added offices in Madrid, Berlin, Paris and Munich to the Squire Sanders network, in addition to significantly boosting its presence in the UK where it previously had only 30 lawyers. London overtook Cleveland as the largest office of the combined firm.
The American Lawyer estimated Squire Sanders to be the 24th largest law firm in the world by number of lawyers and 41st by annual revenue as of 2012.
Patton Boggs
The firm of Patton Boggs was founded in 1962 by James R. Patton, Jr. and joined soon after by George Blow and Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr. It has "participated in the formation of every major multilateral trade agreement considered by Congress." Boggs joined the firm in 1966 after serving as an economist for the Joint Economic Committee and in the executive office of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Patton Boggs was one of the top law firms contributing to federal candidates during the 2012 election cycle, donating US$1.7 million, 67% to Democrats. By comparison, during that same period Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld donated US$2.56, 66% to Democrats, while oil conglomerate ExxonMobil donated US$2.66 million, 88% to Republicans. Since 1990, Squire Patton Boggs contributed US$14.12 million to federal campaigns, and since 1998 spent US$2.72 million on lobbying.
The 2014 Vault.com survey of more than 18,800 associates ranked Patton Boggs as having the best record for pro bono work in the country, and the firm was among the prestigious white-shoe law firms.
Following its involvement in a lawsuit with Chevron in Ecuador, Patton Boggs underwent layoffs and partner exits in 2013 amid a 12% drop in revenue, and entered merger talks with Squire Sanders in 2014. The firms announced that they would merge on June 1, 2014 under the name Squire Patton Boggs, adding 330 lawyers to the firm's existing headcount.
Squire Patton Boggs now maintains one of the largest lobbying practices in Washington, D.C., gaining extensively from the merger with Patton Boggs, which was the largest US lobbying firm by revenue between 2003 and 2013.
Squire Patton Boggs
As a result of the merger, Patton Boggs closed its Anchorage, Alaska office, and a number of high-profile attorneys left the firm, including Benjamin Ginsberg and two other prominent Republican lawyers who joined Jones Day, and a number of healthcare-policy lawyers who joined Akin Gump.
The combined firm adopted Squire Sanders' existing merit pay system for partners over Patton Boggs' more traditional "eat what you kill" system. Partner compensation under the merit system ranges from US$300,000 for some non-equity partners to US$3 million for the three most highly compensated partners.
The firm currently posts an abnormally high leverage ratio, with almost eight lawyers to every partner, according to its 2014-end-of-the-year numbers for full-time lawyers. The D.C. offices of Squire Sanders and Patton Boggs recently moved into the same building, previously the long-standing home of legacy Patton Boggs. The combined firm kept separate revenue pools for its two legacy partnerships from the June merger until the end of 2014, but these are now unified.
In 2016 the firm announced a merger with San Francisco-based disputes and compliance boutique Carroll, Burdick & McDonough, adding 50 lawyers in California, China, Hong Kong and Germany, including a new office near Stuttgart, in Böblingen.
In July 2016, the firm opened its 46th office in Darwin, NT, Australia as part of its Asia-Pacific practice group.
The firm announced that, effective 1 January 2017, Fred Nance would become Global Managing Partner of Squire Patton Boggs, U.S. LLP, managing 955 attorneys in 36 offices in 16 countries, including U.S., Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. This incorporates 688 lawyers in the US and the Dominican Republic. Nance has also been named to the firm’s five member executive committee, where he will be the first African-American partner.
Nance has had a storied career with Squires, negotiating a pact between the NFL and the city of Cleveland to return the Browns to the city; becoming a finalist for the position of NFL Commissioner in 2005; saving 1,000 and securing 600 more Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS) jobs for the city, when the Pentagon said it could no longer afford them; and signing up a young high school basketball player, LeBron James, as a client in 2002.
Locations
As of August 2016, Squire Patton Boggs has 46 offices in 21 countries on five continents. The combined firm advises a diverse mix of local and cross-border clients, from Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 corporations to emerging companies and from individuals to local and national governments.
