Sidley Austin

Sidley Austin LLP is an American multinational law firm with approximately 2,300 lawyers in 21 offices worldwide. It was established in 1866 and its headquarters is at One South Dearborn in Chicago's Loop. It is one of the largest law firms in the world in terms of revenue.

History

Origins in Chicago

In 1866, Norman Williams and John L. Thompson founded the law firm of Williams & Thompson in Chicago, Illinois. William Pratt Sidley, who had joined the firm in 1892, was added to the firm's name in 1900 when it was renamed Holt, Wheeler & Sidley. Edwin C. Austin joined the firm in 1914.

Among the firm's first clients were the Pullman Company, the manufacturer of specialty sleeping railway cars, as well as Western Electric and Illinois Steel.

Expansion and consolidation

In 1963, former postmaster general J. Edward Day left the administration of President John F. Kennedy to establish the firm's Washington, D.C. office. Initial clients included the Advertising Mail Marketing Association.

In 1972, the firm merged with the 50 lawyers of Chicago firm Leibman, Williams, Bennett, Baird & Minow. Additional offices were then established in London, Los Angeles, Singapore and New York. Following the merger, Washington D.C. partner Day resigned and later sued the firm, In a 1974 lawsuit, Day alleged that the merger represented a "breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation, conspiracy, wrongful dissolution or ouster of co-partner and breach of partnership agreement." The suit was later dismissed with prejudice.

In 2001, the firm merged with Brown & Wood, a New York-based law firm established in 1914 with 400 attorneys and additional domestic offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles and overseas branches in London, Beijing and Hong Kong (where it practiced English law in addition to U.S. law). Brown & Wood was known for its securities, structured finance and securitization practices. Brown & Wood had offices in the World Trade Center on floors 54 and 56-59.

Appellate practice group

In 1985, U.S. Solicitor General Rex E. Lee founded Sidley Austin's Appellate Practice Group to represent clients in all appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and state appellate and supreme courts. Following Lee's death, the group was led by Carter Phillips, who has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any lawyer in private practice.

Involvement in the savings and loan crisis

Sidley & Austin was among several law firms caught up in the Savings & Loan Crisis and paid $7.5 million to settle legal malpractice claims stemming from its representation of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.

In 2007, Sidley Austin agreed to pay $39 million as part of a settlement with the Internal Revenue Service. The settlement allowed the firm to avoid criminal charges of alleged fraudulent tax shelter activities. The previous year, Sidley and KPMG agreed to pay $54 million to investors who bought the shelters.

Lobbying for Chinese tech companies

In August 2019, ''Politico'' reported that the Chinese technology company, Huawei, hired Sidley Austin to lobby on their behalf after the Trump administration set restrictions on their business transactions with the U.S. Federal Government. Trade, sanctions, export controls, "and other national security-related topics," were to be the subjects of lobbying efforts, according to reported disclosure filings.

In October of 2022, ''Reuters'' and Politico reported that Sidley Austin updated its registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as a lobbyist for Hikvision USA, a California-based subsidiary of the Chinese video surveillance company, as requested by the U.S. Justice Department. In their registration, the law firm reported having received approximately $7.4 million in fees since beginning their representation in 2018. The firm had initially registered under the U.S. Lobbying Disclosure Act when it was first retained by the company.

Sidley Austin was hired by DJI Technologies in early 2024 after the drone maker was dropped by other agencies in February of that year.

Rankings and recognition

Sidley Austin is the eleventh-largest U.S.-based corporate law firm, with approximately 2,000 lawyers and annual revenues of approximately three billion dollars. The firm is one of the highest-paying companies in the U.S. (with a base salary of $225,000 for first year associates and $435,000 for eighth year associates; equity partners saw a profit per partner of more than $3.0 million in 2020). Sidley maintains offices in 21 cities worldwide, with the most recent addition being Miami in 2022.

Sidley has received the most First-Tier National Rankings a total of eight times since the inception of the '' U.S. News & World Report'' Best Law Firms Survey in 2010. The 2020 ''U.S. News'' Survey also named Sidley as the "Law Firm of the Year" in FDA Law and Securities Litigation. As of 2019, it was the eighth largest law firm in the world (and sixth in the US) by revenue.

The firm frequently appears at the top of various industry rankings. In 2020, the BTI Consulting Group named Sidley to its BTI Client Service A-Team—one of only three law firms to rank in BTI's Client Service Top 30 for 19 consecutive years. The firm earned the top spot in ''Asset-Backed Alerts 2019 league tables for most active underwriter counsel in U.S. asset- and mortgage-backed securitization transactions. Other honors include the American Bar Association's 2019 Champions for Disability Inclusion in the Legal Profession Award, conferred in recognition of the firm's measurable progress in recruiting, retaining, and advancing to leadership lawyers with disabilities, and being named a 2019 "Litigation Department of the Year" finalist by ''The American Lawyer''.

Both the firm's securities practice and its international trade practice have ranked first in the respective specialty rankings of Chambers and Partners. The trade group represents the Airbus/European Communities side in the ongoing WTO dispute with Boeing/US. The group was named a 2019 International Trade Group of the Year by ''Law360'' and has been honored as "Law Firm of the Year" in Trade & Customs by ''Who's Who Legal'' for 15 consecutive years. Its appellate and US Supreme Court practice is also particularly well known and has been featured in ''USA Today'', ''BusinessWeek'', the ''American Lawyer'', the ''Legal Times'', and the ''National Law Journal''. 8/sup>

In 2020, Sidley was named "Firm of the Year" in Capital Markets (Overseas); Corporate Compliance; Healthcare, Pharma and Life Sciences; and Real Estate and REIT by China Business Law Journal. In 2018, Sidley was named Competition & Regulatory Team of the Year at The Lawyer Awards in London.

Pro bono work

Sidley Austin partner George Fatheree worked pro bono on behalf of the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce to execute the return of beachfront land which had been seized by Los Angeles authorities in the 1920s. The couple had lost the property, known as Bruce's Beach, when the state claimed it for public use and sold it to private investors. It was officially restored to the couple's great grandsons, Marcus and Derrick Bruce, on July 20, 2022. The effort involved more than 1,000 hours of pro bono work.

Associates and alumni

* James M. Cole, partner; former deputy attorney general of the United States and author of the Cole Memorandum
* J. Edward Day, former postmaster general of the United States
* George Deukmejian, former governor of California
* Joseph D. Kearney, dean of Marquette University Law School
* Mike Lee, United States senator from Utah
* Rex E. Lee, former solicitor general of the United States and the 10th president of Brigham Young University
* Chris Lu, former United States deputy secretary of labor, and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform
* Victor Marrero, senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
* Newton N. Minow, former chair of the Federal Communications Commission during the Kennedy administration
* Barack Obama, former president of the United States (summer associate in the firm's Chicago office)
* Michelle Obama, former first lady of the United States
* Peter Roskam, partner; former U.S. representative for Illinois's 6th congressional district
* Andy Strenio, former member of the Federal Trade Commission
* David S. Tatel, United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
* JD Vance, United States senator from Ohio and vice president of the United States
* John D. Zeglis, former chief executive officer of AT&T Wireless

See also

* List of largest United States-based law firms by profits per partner

References

External links

Official website
*

{{Authority control

Law firms established in 1866
Law firms based in Chicago
Foreign law firms with offices in Hong Kong
Foreign law firms with offices in Japan
1866 establishments in Illinois
Multinational law firms