Dorsey & Whitney

Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Headquarters	Minneapolis, MN
No. of offices	19
No. of attorneys	577
No. of employees	1,200
Major practice areas	Trial, Corporate, Banking & Commercial, Benefits & Compensation, Environmental, Natural Resources, and Energy, Health, Indian & Gaming, Labor & Employment, Patent, Public Finance, Real Estate, Tax, Trusts & Estates, Trademark
Revenue	$322.5 million USD (2011)
Date founded	1912
Founder	William Lancaster, David Simpson
Company type	Limited liability partnership
Website
www.dorsey.com

Dorsey & Whitney LLP (or "Dorsey") is a large law firm, with close to 600 lawyers and 650 staff located in 19 offices in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Its headquarters is in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has been since its inception. Dorsey is currently led by its managing partner, Marianne D. Short. Its lawyers have included several prominent public figures, such as former U.S. Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun, former Vice President Walter Mondale (who still works there actively), former Governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack,^[1] and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.^[2] It also included legal scholar William Prosser, author of the most important legal textbook in American tort law, Prosser On Torts.

Contents 1 Size 1.1 USA 1.2 Canada 1.3 Europe 1.4 Asia/Pacific 1.5 Closed offices 2 History 3 Recognition and Rankings 4 Key Clients 4.1 Assistance to Guantanamo captives 5 References 6 External links

Size

Dorsey has close to 700 attorneys^[3] and 850 support staff in 19 offices worldwide.^[4]

Dorsey has offices in (first-year associate salaries where available):^[5][4]

USA

• Minneapolis, Minnesota ($110,000)
• New York, New York ($145,000)
• Seattle, Washington ($120,000)
• Denver, Colorado ($110,000)
• Southern California ($145,000)
• Palo Alto, California ($145,000)
• Washington, D.C.
• Wilmington, Delaware
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Des Moines, Iowa
• Fargo, North Dakota
• Missoula, Montana
• Salt Lake City, Utah ($110,000)

Canada

• Toronto, Ontario
• Vancouver, British Columbia

Europe

• London, England

Asia/Pacific

• Shanghai, China
• Hong Kong, China
• Sydney, Australia ^[6]

Closed offices

Former firm offices no longer in operation include:

• Billings, Montana, United States
• Great Falls, Montana, United States
• San Francisco, California, United States
• Northern Virginia
• Brussels, Belgium
• Paris, France
• Tokyo, Japan
• Cambridge, England

History

Dorsey was founded in 1912 by William Lancaster, a director of First National Bank of Minneapolis (now part of U.S. Bank), and David Simpson, a judge on the Minnesota Supreme Court. The following year, they hired James Dorsey as their first associate. Dorsey left the firm in the 1920s to become an investment banker, but returned to the firm a few years after the 1929 stock market crash. Dorsey led the firm until his death in 1959. The name of the firm continued to change for most of its history, until it was shortened into its current, permanent name in 1981. Dorsey continues to build on its traditional strengths in corporate law and litigation through a wide range of practice groups.

The firm has also endowed the Dorsey and Whitney Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Recognition and Rankings

• Dorsey earned high rankings in a variety of practice areas from Chambers USA,^[7] Chambers UK,^[8] and Chambers Global.^[9] Based on thousands of client interviews worldwide, Chambers ranks law attorneys according qualities most valued by clients. Nationally, Dorsey was ranked in the top tier for Native American Law. Dorsey's Minnesota office ranked in the top tier of Corporate, Labor & Employment, Litigation (General and Intellectual Property), and Real Estate categories. In the UK, Dorsey is ranked among the "Best of the UK" in Tax and Corporate, and is highly ranked in Civil Fraud, Litigation, and Dispute Resolution. Its Seattle office ranked in the top tier for Intellectual Property, the fourth tier for Corporate, and the third tier for Litigation in Washington. Its Salt Lake City office ranked in the third tier for Corporate in Utah. Dorsey ranked in the top tier for Corporate, Environmental, Natural Resources, & Rgulated Industries, Labor & Employment, Litigation, and Real Estate in Alaska; the second tier for Corporate in Montana; the top tier for Labor & Employment, and the second tier for Corporate and Litigation in North Dakota.
• Dorsey ranked 7th nationwide in securities litigation cases taken on in 2006.^[10]
• Dorsey has completed more merger and acquisition (M&A) deals in the last 10 years than any other law firm, according to Mergers and Acquisitions: The Dealmakers Journal.^[11]
• In 2006, Dorsey ranked 3rd among law firms for the number of U.S. M&A deals completed, 9th for the number of global M&A deals completed, and 8th for the number of Canadian M&A deals completed, according to Thomson Financial.^[12]
• In 2008, for the 8th consecutive year, Corporate Board Member Magazine named Dorsey as the best corporate law firm in Minneapolis.^[13] The magazine bases its rankings on an annual research study which surveys public company corporate officers, directors and in-house attorneys.
• Eight Dorsey partners, including one retired judge, are members of the American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL).^[14] Membership in the ACTL is by invitation only and is limited to only 1% of total lawyers per state or Canadian province.
• The Dorsey UK tax department was named 2006 “Tax Team of the Year” by Legal Business magazine for a landmark victory in a case before the European Court of Justice.^[15]
• In 2007, Dorsey received the perfect rating of 100% on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) fifth annual Corporate Equality Index.^[16] The index measures employer performance in ensuring fair and open workplaces for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees and consumers.
• In 2007, Dorsey was named as one of the nation's 50 "Best Law Firms for Women" by Working Mother Magazine.^[17]
• According to the BTI Client Service A-Team 2008, Dorsey is the only Twin Cities firm among the Top 30, coming in at 11. Dorsey also ranked "Best of the Best" in advising about business issues.^[18]
• In 2008, for the second consecutive year, Dorsey was named a Minnesota Work-Life Champion.^[19]

New York Kramer Decision

Patrick J. Feely, Co-Chair of the firm's Insurance Practice Group, recently lost a landmark decision that generated national interest on behalf of its client Phoenix Life Insurance Company. In Kramer v. Phoenix Life Insurance Company, 2010 N.Y. Slip Opinion 8376, 2010 N.Y. LEXIS 3281 (Ct. App. Nov. 17, 2010), the firm had sought to convince the seven-judge panel of the New York Court of Appeals that Phoenix should not be required to pay a $28 million death benefit relating to three insurance policies covering the life of Arthur Kramer, a founding partner of the New York City law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. The firm's argument was that Mr. Kramer engaged in an improper secondary market/stranger-originated life insurance ("STOLI") transaction and thereby violated Section 3205(b)(1) of the New York State insurable interest statute by acquiring the policies with the intention of re-selling them to investors and thus did not have a good faith intention of benefiting his family. In a 5-2 decision, the Court ruled that the New York insurable interest statute that applied at the time of the policies' issuance was not violated since the statute does not contain a good faith requirement that the insured first intend to benefit his family before an insurance policy could be sold to investors. Mr. Feely was also unsuccessful in Kramer in trying to overturn over 100 years of precedent and public policy in New York that requires insurance companies to pay death benefits once a policy has been in force for two years even if an insurable interest violation may have occurred at policy inception. The three Kramer policies had all been acquired in 2005 and Mr. Kramer died over two years later in 2008. See Wright v. Mutual Benefit Life, 118 N.Y. 237 (1890), New England Mutual v. Caruso, 73 N.Y. 2d 74 (1989). The Kramer decision was hailed throughout the country as a victory for the life settlement industry and as a blow to insurance companies looking to avoid their obligations under insurance policies that they aggressively issued to individuals seeking to participate in the secondary life settlement market.

Key Clients

According to Corporate Counsel, Dorsey has been identified as the Go-To firm for the following Top 500 companies^[20]:

• 3M (Labor, Litigation)
• C.H. Robinson Worldwide (Corporate Transactions, International, Labor, Litigation, Securities)
• Charter Communications (Labor)
• CHS (Corporate Transactions, Securities)
• Dana (Corporate Transactions)
• General Mills (Corporate Transactions, International)
• Hormel Foods (Litigation)
• Mosaic (Corporate Transactions, Labor, Securities)
• SuperValu (Litigation)
• UnitedHealth Group (Labor, Securities)
• Wells Fargo (Labor)
• Xcel Energy (Labor)

Other key clients:

• ADC Telecommunications
• Canon
• Cisco
• Fair Isaac
• HSBC
• Marks & Spencer
• Mayo Clinic
• Northwest Airlines
• USBancorp

Assistance to Guantanamo captives

Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, an attorney with Dorsey & Whitney prepared the habeas corpus petition for the six Bahraini citizens held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.^[21] Juma al Dossari, one of Colangelo-Bryan's clients, made a suicide attempt during Colangelo-Bryan's visit.^{[22][23][24][25]}

Charles "Cully" Stimson, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, stirred controversy when he went on record criticizing the patriotism of law firms that allowed employees to assist Guantanamo captives: "corporate CEOs seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists." ^[26] Stimson's views were widely criticized. The Pentagon disavowed them and he resigned shortly thereafter.

References

External links

• Dorsey & Whitney website
• Chambers and Partners USA Profile
• LawPeriscope Profile