Sidley Austin

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Sidley Austin LLP
Sidley Austin
No. of Offices 16 Worldwide
No. of Attorneys 1700+
No. of Employees about 3,600
Major Practice Areas General practice
Revenue Image:green up.png $1.25 billion USD (2007)[1]
Date Founded 1866
Founder Norman Williams and
John Leverett Thompson
Company Type Limited liability partnership
Website www.sidley.com

Sidley Austin LLP, formerly known as Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, is one of the oldest law firms in the world. It is the sixth-largest U.S.-based corporate law firm with over 1,800 lawyers, annual revenues of more than one billion dollars, and offices in 16 cities worldwide, with the most recent addition of Sydney, Australia, in May 2007. It is a full-service law firm, with broad experience in transaction and litigation matters. Its original predecessor firm was founded in 1866 and had Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of President Abraham Lincoln, among its earliest clients.

According to Vault, it is a formidable contender for the top position among law firms. The firm frequently appears at the top of various industry rankings. In 2005, the BTI Consulting Group named Sidley to its Client Service Hall of Fame—one of only two law firms to rank in BTI's Client Service Top 10 for five consecutive years—and Sidley was named No. 1 Power Elite Firm for 2005. The firm also showed up in 14 categories on The American Lawyer's Corporate Scorecard, landing in the No. 1 spot for its roles as issuer's counsel in equities offered by U.S. corporations, issuers' and underwriters' counsel for investment grade debt, and underwriters' counsel for REIT debt. Other recent honors include the 2005 Catalyst Award, conferred in recognition of the firm's impressive initiatives to retain and promote women attorneys, and its second consecutive year as No. 1 in the rankings by Thomson Financial for top issuer counsel and manager counsel for U.S. debt and equity-related activity. [2]

As of 2006, it was the 9th largest law firm in the world (and 5th in the US) by revenue.

The firm is particularly known for its securities practice[3] and its international trade practice,[4] both of which have consistently ranked first in the respective specialty rankings of Chambers and Partners. The trade group currently represents the Airbus/European Communities side in the ongoing WTO dispute with Boeing/US. The group was recently named Global WTO Law Firm of the Year [5] and ranks first, before Wilmer Hale and Steptoe & Johnson, in the European Legal 500 ranking.[6] 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.[7]

The firm was formed as the result of the merger of two firms: the Chicago-based Sidley & Austin, founded in 1866, and the New York-based Brown & Wood, founded in 1914. The merger was completed in May 2001.

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[edit] Locations

The firm has offices in Beijing, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C..

[edit] Sidley during 9/11/01

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, personally affected the employees of Sidley Austin. Prior to the merger creating Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, which took place just four months before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the head office of Brown & Wood was in the World Trade Center, while Sidley & Austin had recently opened a small New York office on Third Avenue. Out of 600 employees who worked in the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks, one perished, a support staff worker named Rosemary Smith.

Sidley Austin reopened its New York office on Monday, September 17, 2001 in the old Sidley & Austin office on Third Avenue that it had planned on closing on September 16. Instead, it leased four additional floors in that location, in a deal completed less than three hours after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Sidley Austin later opened a permanent new office on Seventh Avenue in July 2002.

[edit] Name changes

In the 1920s, the firm was named Cutting, Moore & Sidley. Following a number of changes, it was known as Sidley & Austin for many years until it merged with the New York capital markets firm Brown & Wood in the 1990s. Its name was changed to Sidley Austin LLP on January 1, 2006.

[edit] Salary

In the United States, the summer associate starting salary is $3000/wk and the first year associate starting salary is $160,000.

[edit] Famous alumni

  • Barack Obama was a summer associate in the Chicago office, but never joined the firm as a full-time associate. He met his wife, Michelle Obama (who was an associate at Sidley Austin at the time), while he was a summer associate at the firm. [8]
  • James L. Connaughton Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) under George W. Bush was a partner in Sidley Austin's Environmental Practice Group, covering a wide range of environmental policy issues.
  • Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, worked at the firm in the 1970s.
  • Newton Minow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President John F. Kennedy, was a partner in the Chicago office from 1965-1991 and continues to serve as senior counsel to the firm.
  • Daniel M. Price has been appointed Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs by George W. Bush. In this role, Mr. Price serves as the principal advisor to the President on international economic issues and will be responsible for coordinating U.S. Administration policy on international trade and investment, foreign assistance to developing countries, and the international aspects of energy security and climante change. He was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office.
  • David S. Tatel, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, began his legal career at Sidley Austin.
  • John D. Zeglis, the former Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Wireless, was an associate (1973-1978) and partner (1978-1984) in the Chicago office, where he spent a significant amount of time helping AT&T navigate through the Federal Communications Commission's orders to breakup the company, before leaving to join AT&T as a corporate vice president.

[edit] References

  1. ^ 12 Feb 2007. PEP up 10% as McDermott posts 2006 results. Legal Week.
  2. ^ Sidley Austin LLP Employment: Vault Sidley Employment Snapshot
  3. ^ Chambers and Partners: Search Chambers Global Guide
  4. ^ Chambers and Partners: Chambers Global Guide Editorial
  5. ^ Sidley Austin LLP's International Trade and Dispute Resolution Group Honored by Chambers and Partners
  6. ^ The Legal 500 US recommends
  7. ^ Sidley Austin LLP - Our Practice
  8. ^ Obama '85 masters balancing act from The Daily Princetonian

[edit] External links