| Jones Day | |
|---|---|
| No. of offices | 34 |
| No. of attorneys | 2,500 |
| Major practice areas | General practice |
| Revenue | $1.4 billion |
| Date founded | 1893 (Cleveland, Ohio) |
| Company type | General partnership[1] |
| Slogan | One firm worldwide |
| Website | |
| www.jonesday.com | |
Jones Day is an international law firm founded in Cleveland, Ohio on March 1, 1893, by Judge Edwin J. Blandin and William Lowe Rice. Jones Day is the eighth largest law firm in the world by revenue, and the fourth highest grossing firm in the US with annual revenues of US$1.4 billion.[2][3][4] It is also currently the second most populous law firm in the United States with approximately 2,500 lawyers.[5] The current managing partner, Stephen J. Brogan, is based in the firm's Washington, D.C. office.
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Jones Day was founded in 1893 in Cleveland, Ohio as Blandin & Rice. In its early days, major Ohio-based clients included the Ohio & Pennsylvania Coal Company, major utilities and railroads.
In 1939, the firm then known as Tolles, Hogsett & Glinn merged with another Cleveland firm to become Jones, Day, Cockley & Reavis. The merged firm numbered 22 partners and 20 associates.
In 1944, an explosion at the East Ohio Gas Company killed 130 people and destroyed 600 homes. Jones, Day lawyers counseled the gas company and settled many claims before trial.
In 1946, it opened its first office outside of Ohio in Washington, D.C.
By 1952, the firm represented the Youngstown, Ohio steel mill in the celebrated case testing the limits of executive power, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.
In 1967, the firm merged with Washington D.C.-based Pogue & Neal to become Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.
The firm suffered a setback in 1980 when most of the Washington, D.C. office split to form the firm Crowell & Moring. Since that time, Crowell has matured into a top 100 law firm in its own right while Jones Day has rebuilt its Washington, D.C. office to more than 200 lawyers. That same year Jones Day opened in Columbus, Ohio, followed in 1981 in Dallas through the acquisition of local firm Meyers, Miller, Middleton, Weiner & Warren.
The international expansion of Jones Day began in 1986 when the firm merged with boutique law firm Surrey & Morse, a firm of 75 attorneys with international offices in London, Paris and Riyadh.
The following years saw a rapid expansion to many established and emerging financial and business centers both in the United States and abroad. In 2003, in perhaps its most significant merger to date, Jones Day merged with Gouldens, a 200 lawyer London based firm with a solid mid-tier reputation in finance and property. Gouldens had engaged in preliminary merger negotiations with White & Case but had abandoned them in favor of maintaining its autonomy. The London office was known as Jones Day Gouldens during 2003 until the moniker was dropped in favor of the united global brand. The UK-US merger followed the union between Chicago-based firm Mayer Brown & Platt and Rowe & Maw, another middle market UK law firm of approximately 200 attorneys as non-New York firms sought to ramp up their expansion plans in the competitive (and lucrative) London market.
The following year, many attorneys from the unraveling intellectual property New York boutique law firm Pennie & Edmonds joined Jones Day to cement its reputation in that sector.
In 2002, Jones Day's Litigation Department was the first ever to receive the American Lawyer's Litigaton Department of the Year award. In 2008, Jones Day was named the American Lawyer's Labor and Employment Group of the Year.[6] Jones Day is also one of two law firms to be named to BTI Consulting's client-service hall of fame, and is regularly recognized in surveys of corporate general counsels as the top or one of the top law firms in the United States.
In 2009, Jones Day was ranked the 19th most prestigious firm on the Vault 100 yearly list of the most prestigious law firms.[7] On the same list, Jones Day was ranked #1 Best in Region - Midwest, #1 Partner Prestige Rankings - Antitrust, and ranked in the top 25 in 15 categories.[8]
At the 2008 ALB SE Asia Law Awards,[9] Jones Day was crowned:
Notable alumni of the firm include:
The firm practices in virtually all areas of law, including:
Jones Day is especially renowned for its litigation practice, which numbers over 1,000 lawyers and is the largest in the world. In 2002, the American Lawyer magazine selected Jones Day's litigation group as its first ever Litigation Department of the Year. Particular areas of strength under the broader umbrella of litigation include antitrust (or competition law), labor & employment (which was named American Lawyer's 2008 practice group of the year), and products liability. Jones Day also has a leading appellate practice, and in recent years has ranked at or near the top of the list of private U.S. firms engaged in litigation in the United States Supreme Court (by number of cases briefed and argued on the merits).
Other awards included the following:
In August 2008, Jones Day filed a lawsuit[10] over the website Blockshopper linking to their own website while discussing condo purchases by two of the firm's associates. The suit argues that linking to their site in this matter dilutes their service mark. This is seen by some[11] as an abuse of trademark law and potentially harmful of the concept of linking.
In November, 2008 the judge overseeing the trial, Judge John W. Darrah of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, ruled to dismiss[12] claims against BlockShopper founders Brian Timpone and Edward Weinhaus and granted a request by Jones Day to block amicus briefs from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others on the grounds that they were biased.[13]
In February, 2009, Blockshopper and Jones Day settled the case, allowing BlockShopper to continue to cover Jones Day attorneys and embed deep links to Jones Day attorney profiles on non-Jones Day owned sites. The case and settlement runs against precedent set in prior cases regarding deep linking.[14]