Bird & Bird
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| Bird & Bird | |
| No. of Offices | 21 |
|---|---|
| No. of Attorneys | 784 |
| No. of Employees | 1,000+ |
| Key People | David Kerr, Michael Frie |
| Date Founded | 1846 |
| Founder | William Frederick Wratislaw Bird and James Moore |
| Company Type | L.L.P. |
| Website | www.twobirds.com |
Contents |
[edit] Profile
Bird & Bird is an international law firm with over 200 partners and broad advisory, transactional and contentious capability. Well known for its intellectual property work, in recent years the firm has undertaken expansion in many areas of commercial law, across selected industry sectors. These sectors include automotive, aviation & aerospace, banking & financial services, communications, energy & utilities, food & beverage, information technology, life sciences, media and sport.
Bird & Bird has offices in Beijing, Bratislava, Brussels, Budapest, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, The Hague, Helsinki, Hong Kong, London, Lyon, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris, Prague, Rome, Shanghai, Singapore, Stockholm, Warsaw and close ties with firms in other key centres in Europe, Asia and the United States.
[edit] History
•1846 William Frederick Wratislaw Bird founds a law firm in Gray's Inn in partnership with James Moore. The firm is called Bird & Moore.
•1853 Bird & Moore takes up residence at 5 Gray's Inn Square, London where the firm remains until 1941.
•1884 The firm's founder, W. F. Wratislaw Bird dies at the age of 74. His son, William Barrott Montford Bird, carries on the practice and builds a strong clientele in the coal mining and iron making sector. W. B. Montford Bird later forms one of the first electric light bulb companies whose successor - now a household name - is still a client of the firm.
•1898 Now known as Bird Moore & Strode, the firm instructs D. M. Kerly in its first reported trade mark case - an application by The Eastman Photographic Materials Company Ltd to register 'Solio' in respect of photographic paper.
•1905 The firm is renamed Bird & Bird under the leadership of W. B. M. Bird and his cousin Ernest Edward Bird.
•1909 Bird & Bird conducts its first reported patent case. The case of 'Z' Electric Manufacturing Co Ltd v Marples, Leach & Co Ltd concerned filaments for incandescent electric bulbs.
•1941 Bird & Bird is forced to move premises after the building at 5 Gray's Inn Square is destroyed in an air raid.
•1943 Ernest E. Bird serves as president of the Law Society and is reputed to have chaired their shortest ever AGM due to an air raid warning. He was knighted the following year.
•1950 Sir William Bird (knighted in 1920) dies - leaving the firm 'Birdless' for the first time since its foundation.
•1954 The firm returns to Gray`s Inn Square, moving into newly rebuilt chambers at No 2.
•1958 the merger with Richard Furber & Son Windsor & Brown ushers in a new age with the arrival of Alan Woods, who eventually becomes Senior Partner.
•1967 Bird & Bird gains two new partners on its merger with Ranken Ford & Chester, a firm with one of the oldest histories in London, its origins dating back to the 18th Century.
•1973 Alan Woods co-founds the Society for Computers and Law and becomes its first paying member.
•1984 Telecoms liberalisation gets under way in the UK. Bird & Bird gains its first telecoms client.
•1989 Bird & Bird conducts the first Judicial Review of OFTEL.
•1990 Every Bird & Bird lawyer has a PC on his/her desk.
•1991 The firm opens its EC office in Brussels, Belgium
•1995 Bird & Bird opens its doors to a global audience through the launch of www.twobirds.com the first law firm with an on-line presence. The firm also opens for business in Hong Kong.
•2000 Bird & Bird begins an ambitious 5 year development programme by opening for business in Paris, France and Stockholm, Sweden.
•2001 Bird & Bird opens in The Hague, The Netherlands.
•2002 Bird & Bird opens for business in Düsseldorf, Germany.
•2003 New offices in Italy Milan, Italy and a (second) office in Germany, Munich.
•2004 A landmark in Bird & Bird’s growth as the number of partners exceeds 100 for the first time. The practice in Asia expands with the opening of an office in Beijing, China.
•2005 New offices: Spain (Madrid) a second office in Italy (Rome) and a third office in Germany (Frankfurt).
•2006 Bird & Bird opens a second office in France (Lyon).
•2008 Bird & Bird wins International Law Firm of the Year at The Lawyer Awards 2008. The firm has its most expansive year to date with four new offices in Central Europe - Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and a third office in China (Shanghai). The firm also opens for business in Helsinki, Finland, and expands its London operation via a merger with Lane & Partners. On 29 November, Bird & Bird converted to limited liability partnership status (LLP).
•2009 Bird & Bird enters into a global association with Alban Tay Mahtani & de Silva LLP (ATMD), one of Singapore’s leading law firms. The Singapore office is known as ATMD Bird & Bird.
[edit] International Expansion
Ten years ago Bird & Bird had an office in London with small offices in Brussels and Hong Kong. After a period of rapid international expansion, today it has 21 offices across 15 countries. Of the firm's 21 offices, 18 of these were launched since 2000 and well over half of the firm’s partners are based outside the UK.
[edit] Recent Awards
•2009: European Patent Firm 2009, German Contentious IP Firm 2009, Spanish Contentious IP Firm 2009 and Singapore IP firm 2009, awarded by Managing Intellectual Property
•2009: Intellectual Property Law Firm of the Year, Singapore, awarded by Asian Legal Business SE Asia
•2009: Global Law Firm of the Year 2009, awarded by the International Council of Jurists
•2008/9: IT Law Firm of the Year, awarded by JUVE
•2008: International Law Firm of the Year, awarded by The Lawyer
