Bird & Bird

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

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.

History

Gray's Inn Square

1846 William Frederick Wratislaw Bird founds a law firm in The Honourable Society of 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.
• 2011: Bird & Bird opens a fourth office in Germany (Hamburg).

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 22 offices, 19 of these were launched since 2000 and well over half of the firm’s partners are based outside the UK.

Recent awards

• 2008: International Law Firm of the Year, awarded by The Lawyer

External links

• Official website