Latham & Watkins

Dana Latham and Paul R. Watkins were both born in Illinois in the late 1890s. Latham graduated from Harvard Law School in 1922 and specialized in state and federal tax law; Watkins studied law at Illinois Wesleyan University, served as general counsel of Pacific Finance Corporation and built a strong labor law practice. In January 1934 the two founded a law firm in Los Angeles, which prospered despite the Great Depression.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

The firm’s first significant client was Consolidated Rock Products Company, and within a year it had added clients including Pacific Finance Corporation and the London retailer Fortnum & Mason. Herbert Hoover Jr., son of President Herbert Hoover, helped the firm win several early clients, including United Geophysical, whose exploration in Central and South America gave the firm its first experience in international law. After the National Labor Relations Act passed in 1935, the firm emphasized labor law, representing employers in union disputes.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

When World War II began in 1939, Latham & Watkins had four attorneys; the firm continued to grow during the war as many new laws and regulations were enacted. Early in the war Latham began representing Corliss Champion Moseley, who ran aviation companies in Southern California and, under a federal contract, trained some 26,000 pilots and 13,000 mechanics at the Glendale airport.⁠[1][1][1][1]

After the war the firm recruited young attorneys and some veterans returned, and in 1949 it adopted its first written partnership agreement; by 1954 it had 14 attorneys and had begun building a litigation practice. In 1967 the firm still had only 30 attorneys, and that year Clinton R. Stevenson became managing partner; in 1970 the firm installed a new computer system.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

In 1972 two partners opened an office in Santa Ana, Orange County; by 1983 it had moved to Newport Beach and had 21 attorneys. In 1978 the firm recruited experienced attorneys for the first time to open a Washington, D.C., office, headed by Carla Hills, secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Gerald Ford. In 1980 the firm opened a San Diego office.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

From 1978 to 1981 the firm devoted substantial resources to representing Gulf Oil Corporation in the so-called uranium cases: Westinghouse Electric Company, which had promised uranium fuel to the utilities that bought its nuclear plants, sued Gulf for alleged uranium price fixing. In 1981 the two companies settled a major part of the dispute out of court.⁠[1][1][1]

In early 1982, after extended negotiations, Latham & Watkins merged with the Chicago firm Hedlund, Hunter & Lynch, a 20-lawyer litigation firm, in its first merger; by 1983 the firm had grown to 237 attorneys and added bankruptcy, commercial and international law. In 1985 it opened a New York office.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In 1985 consultant David H. Maister cited Latham & Watkins as a prime example of a well-managed “one-firm firm” that stressed firmwide coordination of decision-making, teamwork and institutional loyalty, with few status symbols for partners, a reliance on training its own lawyers, little lateral recruiting and few acquisitions of other firms.⁠[1][1][1]

In 1990 the firm opened offices in San Francisco and London, followed by Moscow (1992), Hong Kong and Newark (1994), Tokyo (1995), and Silicon Valley and Singapore (1997).⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

During the 1991 downturn the firm assigned 20 attorneys to an Insolvency Project advising clients on bankruptcy and restructuring. That year it also released 43 junior associates, a drastic step given its commitment to retain attorneys until retirement, as profits plummeted in the early 1990s, partly because of the bankruptcy of Drexel Burnham Lambert, its major investment banking client of the 1980s. In 1993 the firm began rewarding partners who brought in business, ending its seniority system.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In late 1997 the firm helped America Online fight junk e-mail, and AOL obtained a court injunction barring Over the Air Equipment Inc., an advertiser of pornographic websites, from sending unsolicited messages to its subscribers. In 1998 the firm worked on M&A deals worth almost $60 billion and more than $36 billion in public and private financings. In July 1999 The American Lawyer ranked it the fourth-largest U.S. law firm, with gross revenue of $502 million.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In February 2009 Latham & Watkins cut 190 associates and 250 staff members, about 12 percent of its associates and 10 percent of its paralegal and administrative staff, with the New York and Los Angeles offices hit hardest; the severance package included six months’ salary and medical coverage, with pay capped at $100,000. Chairman Robert Dell said the firm had an over-capacity issue and that its 550 partners would not be affected.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

Robert Dell, longtime chair and managing partner, led the firm for two decades before officially retiring on December 31, 2014; during his tenure the firm received the Pro Bono Institute’s John H. Pickering Award in 2012. Bill Voge was elected global chair and managing partner in 2014 and took over the next year, the firm’s first leadership change in 20 years.⁠[3][3][3][4][4]

In March 2018 chair and managing partner Bill Voge resigned immediately and retired. The firm’s executive committee said Voge had voluntarily disclosed exchanging communications of a sexual nature with a woman he had never met and who had no connection to the firm, and that his subsequent conduct, while not unlawful, was not befitting the firm’s leader; the conduct did not involve the firm, its clients or personnel. Voge issued an apology calling it a personal mistake. Vice chairs Ora Fisher and Richard Trobman handled his duties in the interim.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4]

In June 2018, after a three-month search, Latham & Watkins elected London-based finance lawyer Richard Trobman as chair and managing partner, the firm’s second successive London-based leader and the only London-based candidate among eight. Trobman joined the firm in Los Angeles in 1991, moved to New York in 1993 and has been based in London since 2000, when he made partner; he had headed the London corporate practice, served on the executive committee and become vice chair in February 2017.⁠[5][5][6][6][6][6]

In August 2023 Latham & Watkins moved to close its Shanghai office, established almost two decades earlier, another example of U.S. law firms scaling back in mainland China. As of October 2026 its Asia-Pacific offices are Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo.⁠[7][7][8]

In March 2025 Latham & Watkins reported 2024 revenue of $7 billion, up 23 percent from $5.7 billion and more than double its revenue seven years earlier; average equity partner earnings rose 29 percent to more than $7.1 million, and lawyer headcount reached 3,584. The firm said it advises more than 1,100 public companies and is primary corporate governance and securities counsel to more than 400; its Houston-led energy practice generates about $2 billion in revenue.⁠[9][10][10][9][9][9][9]

On April 11, 2025, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett had each committed at least $125 million in pro bono legal work, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft $100 million, to avoid punitive executive orders, with the work directed to causes both sides support such as assisting veterans and combating antisemitism. The five firms also agreed not to engage in “illegal DEI discrimination” and not to deny representation because of individual lawyers’ political views; as part of the deal, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission withdrew inquiry letters it had sent four of the firms on March 17. More than 500 firms had earlier signed an amicus brief supporting Perkins Coie’s challenge to an executive order against it; these firms did not join.⁠[11][11][11][12][12][12][12][11][11]

In April 2026 Latham & Watkins reported record 2025 global revenue of $8.3 billion, up 18.6 percent, and record profits per equity partner of $8.65 million; by revenue it is the world’s second-largest law firm after Kirkland & Ellis. Its London office passed $1 billion in revenue for the first time, making Latham the second U.S. firm after Kirkland & Ellis to do so; its UK M&A practice ranked first for a second straight year with $86 billion in deal value, including Anglo American’s merger with Teck.⁠[13][13][13][13][14][14][14][14]

As of October 2026 Latham & Watkins has offices in 14 countries and capabilities across more than 60 disciplines, with nearly 500 lawyers in London; Rich Trobman is chair and managing partner. Forty associates became partners effective January 1, 2026, and 22 counsel effective March 1, 2026. In 2025 the firm opened more than 1,000 pro bono matters, and more than 90 percent of its lawyers take part in pro bono work.⁠[15][15][16][17][17][17][15][15]

Latham & Watkins: Official website: https://www.lw.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18]

X: Public account: https://x.com/lathamwatkins (opens in a new window)⁠[18]