Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
Headquarters	Washington, D.C. and Boston, Massachusetts
No. of offices	14
No. of attorneys	1,000+ (2013)
No. of employees	approximately 2,500
Major practice areas	General Practice
Key people	William F. Lee, William J. Perlstein, Susan W. Murley, Robert T. Novick
Revenue	$1.076b USD (2012)
Date founded	Boston, Massachusetts (1918); Washington, D.C. (1962), the two firms merged in 2004 to form Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr (WilmerHale)
Founder	multiple
Company type	Limited liability partnership
Website
www.wilmerhale.com

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (known as WilmerHale) is an American law firm with fourteen offices across the USA, Europe and Asia. It was created in 2004 through the merger of the Boston-based firm Hale and Dorr and the Washington-based firm Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, and employs more than 1,000 attorneys worldwide. The firm is recognized as one of the top law firms in the United States.

History

Hale and Dorr was founded in Boston in 1918 by Richard Hale, Dudley Huntington Dorr, Frank Grinnell, Roger Swaim and John Maguire. Reginald Heber Smith, author of the seminal work Justice and the Poor and a pioneer in the American legal aid movement, joined the firm in 1919 and served as managing partner for thirty years. Hale and Dorr gained national recognition in 1954 when partner Joseph Welch, assisted by associate James St. Clair and John Kimball, Jr., represented the U.S. Army on a pro bono basis during the historic Army-McCarthy hearings. In 1988, partner Paul Brountas chaired the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, and in 1990, senior partner William Weld was elected governor. The firm has had a long and mutually profitable relationship with nearby Harvard Law School, alma mater of more than a fifth of WilmerHale's current lawyers, and home of the WilmerHale Legal Services Center.

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering was founded in Washington in 1962 by former Cravath attorneys Lloyd Cutler and John Pickering, along with a senior lawyer, Richard Wilmer. Cutler, who later served as White House Counsel to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, founded the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in 1962, and served on its executive committee until 1987.

In the 1980s, Cutler led the founding of the Southern Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project, to aid South African lawyers who fought to implement the rule of law during apartheid. From 1981 to 1993, partner C. Boyden Gray left the firm to serve as White House Counsel to Vice President and President George H.W. Bush.

In 1988, the law firm established a subsidiary as a registered investment adviser. Initially known as Haldor Investment Advisors, L.P., and then Hale Dorr Wealth Advisers. In 2008 Hale Dorr Wealth Advisors became Silver Bridge. In 2003, partner Jamie Gorelick began serving as a member of the 9/11 Commission. The two firms merged to form Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in 2004.

In 2010, the law firm relocated its administrative support base to a new campus in Dayton, Ohio as it seeks to streamline internal business operations across its offices, providing improved efficiencies for administrative teams and the firm, and reduce significant operational expenses.

Reputation

WilmerHale is ranked by industry publications as a leading global law firm. Each year the firm is honored with accolades for excellence in leadership, diversity, pro bono and is identified as a community partner and top place to work. Some of those accolades include:

• American Lawyer "A-List" (2012) – Firm recognized in annual compilation that lists the 20 leading US firms and honors overall excellence, including financial success, commitment to pro bono work, workforce diversity and the training and development of younger lawyers.

• Corporate Equality Index (2013) – WilmerHale earned a 100 percent rating in the 2013 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), an annual survey administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC). This is the fourth consecutive year WilmerHale has received a perfect CEI score on the survey, which evaluates the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees in the workplace.

• Financial Times – (2011, 2012) For two consecutive years, WilmerHale has been recognized in the Financial Times’ US Innovative Lawyers special report. A report that reflects those law firms bringing fresh thinking and practices to solving business problems across the nation.

• InformationWeek 500 (2012) – WilmerHale is included in this annual listing of the nation’s most innovative users of business technology. The firm was recognized for its e-discovery and document review technology, known as WilmerHale DiscoverySolutions (WHDS).

• JUVE Handbook (2011/2012 and 2012/2013) – WilmerHale is consistently ranked among the Top 50 law firms in Berlin and Frankfurt.

• Law360 (2012) - WilmerHale's commitment to pro bono earned the firm a feature place in the Law360 Pro Bono Firms of the Year series.

• MultiCultural Law Magazine (2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012) – Firm recognized as one of the nation’s “Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity” and among the “Top 100 Law Firms for Women.” In addition, in 2009 and 2011 the firm ranked in the following specialized listings: the "Top 50 Law Firms for Partners"; the "Top 50 Law Firms for Associates"; and the "Top 25 Law Firms for African-Americans; and the "Top 25 Law Firms for Asian-Americans."

• Women in Law Empowerment Forum (2012) – “Gold Standard Certification Award” given to select law firms where women are integrated into the highest leadership positions.

• Working Mother magazine and Flex Time Lawyers (2012) – The firm has been included in the “Best Law Firms for Women” list in each of the five years the ranking has been published. The Best Law Firms for Women are recognized for having programs that encourage networking, training and mentoring for women, and for fostering environments that enable women to balance successful careers with motherhood.

• Yale Law Women (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) - For five consecutive years WilmerHale has been named to the Yale Law Women's list of "Top Ten Family Friendly Firms."

Clients

Clients

Companies that have recently been represented by WilmerHale attorneys include: Apple, Akamai Technologies, Amdocs, Analog Devices, AT&T, Avid, Bayer, Becton Dickinson, Biogen Idec, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Boeing, Bose, Boston Scientific, Broadcom, Cephalon, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Chrysler LLC, Danaher, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telekom, Educational Testing Service, EMC, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, The Hartford Financial Group, Honda, HSBC Finance, John Hancock, JPMorgan Chase, Kodak, Lufthansa, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Monsanto, Morgan Stanley, Novartis, Oracle, Panera Bread, PerkinElmer, Pfizer, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Red Hat, Sepracor, Staples, Statoil, Sun Life Financial, Thermo Fisher Scientific, UBS, Varian Semiconductor, WebMD, Wyeth, and Yankee Candle.^{[citation needed]}

A Civil Action

In the late 1980s, Hale and Dorr partner Jerome Facher successfully represented Beatrice Foods in a suit by eight families from Woburn, Massachusetts who claimed that Beatrice, along with W.R. Grace, had polluted the town's water supply, resulting in an elevated number of leukemia cases and immune-system disorders. The case was memorialized in the controversial book A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr, and in a movie of the same name starring Robert Duvall as Facher and John Travolta as plaintiffs' lawyer Jan Schlichtmann. Upon further discovery, the EPA took the case on and W.R. Grace was successfully indicted for making false statements. Both W. R. Grace and Beatrice Foods paid a total $64.9M to clean up the contaminated sites in Woburn, MA.

Enron and WorldCom reports

In the wake of news articles raising concerns about transactions between Enron and its CFO, Andy Fastow, lawyers from Wilmer Cutler & Pickering represented a special investigative committee of Enron's board of directors in an internal investigation into those transactions. The resulting report, known as the "Powers Report," laid out the facts that have been the predicate for much of the public discussion of Enron since that time.

Similarly, after WorldCom's announcement that it would have to restate financial statements, the firm represented a special investigative committee of WorldCom's board of directors in performing an internal investigation into the accounting irregularities. The investigation resulted in a widely-covered written report that detailed a variety of accounting issues as well as the role of management and the board of directors.

Other notable and controversial clients

In 1986, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering represented corporate raider Ivan Boesky in high-profile Department of Justice and SEC proceedings, as well as multiple class actions based on his alleged participation in insider trading violations.

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering represented Swiss banks accused of profiting from the Holocaust in their settlement negotiations with plaintiffs. The firm also represented Siemens AG, Krupp AG, and other German companies accused of exploiting forced laborers during the Nazi era.

Since 2005, WilmerHale has represented Senator William Frist in regard to an SEC insider trading investigation.

Pro bono

A steadfast commitment to pro bono representation has been a hallmark of the firm since the early 20th century, when partner Reginald Heber Smith—considered the father of legal aid in the United States—authored the seminal book Justice and the Poor and galvanized the organized bar nationally to secure equal justice for those unable to afford counsel. More than seven decades later, in 1992, partner John Pickering led the effort to establish the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge and ensured that WilmerHale was its charter signatory. Today, as measured by The American Lawyer, WilmerHale’s pro bono program ranks as one of the top in the country.

WilmerHale’s lawyers have been involved in many of the influential legal cases and social developments that have shaped the nation. In 1954, Joseph Welch, assisted by James St. Clair and Jack Kimball, represented the US Army on a pro bono basis in the nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings. In 1963, Lloyd Cutler and others served as a leading force in creating the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, at the behest of President John F. Kennedy.

The firm’s pro bono efforts have also influenced historic developments around the globe. Through the Southern Africa Legal Support and Education Project, WilmerHale joined with others to fight apartheid and establish the rule of law in South Africa. Lawyers at WilmerHale also helped write the constitutions of several central European countries after the fall of the Soviet Union.

On the domestic front, for more than a decade the firm’s lawyers have provided pro bono legal services to indigent persons through the WilmerHale Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, a major clinical teaching facility that has assisted more than 20,000 low-income persons.

Other high-profile cases include:

• Successfully contended that the Eighth Amendment forbids the death penalty for persons under the age of eighteen in the United States Supreme Court case of Roper v. Simmons. This case was argued by former United States Solicitor General Seth Waxman.^{[citation needed]}

• Represented Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold and other sponsors of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (known popularly as "McCain-Feingold") in defending the Act's constitutionality. Again, Seth Waxman argued the case in front of the Supreme Court, which upheld all of the core provisions of the Act.^{[citation needed]}

• Represented the University of Michigan for six years, after its affirmative action policy was challenged as unconstitutional. The lawyers argued the cases in the Sixth Circuit and in the Supreme Court, which held, in Grutter v. Bollinger, that universities have a compelling interest in achieving the educational benefits of a racially diverse student body.^{[citation needed]}

Guantanamo controversy

Main article: Guantanamo Bay attorneys

A team of WilmerHale attorneys currently represents the “Algerian Six”, a group of men who fell under suspicion of planning to attack the US embassy in Bosnia and who are now held in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.

In 2006, attorney Melissa Hoffer, then part of the team with WilmerHale, delivered a speech in Caen, France, critical of U.S. detainee policy. Other WilmerHale lawyers participating in the case include Stephen Oleskey, Rob Kirsch, Mark C. Fleming, Lynne Campbell Soutter, Jeffrey Gleason, Lauren Brunswick, and Adam Gershenson.

In January 2007, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, criticized WilmerHale and other major law firms for representing "the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001," and questioned whether such work was really being done pro bono or might actually receive funding from shadowy sources. In a Wall Street Journal editorial criticizing Stimson, Harvard Law School professor (and former United States Solicitor General under President Reagan) Charles Fried wrote:

“

"It is no surprise that firms like Wilmer Hale (which represents both Big Pharma and Tobacco Free Kids), Covington & Burling (which represents both Big Tobacco and Guantanamo detainees), and the other firms on Mr. Stimson's hit list, are among the most sought-after by law school graduates, and retain the loyalty and enthusiasm of their partners. They offer their lawyers the profession at its best, and help assure that the rule of law is not just a slogan but a satisfying way of life."

”

In December 2007, Seth Waxman made the oral argument to the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush which upheld habeas corpus rights for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Offices

• Boston, MA
• New York, NY
• Los Angeles, CA
• Palo Alto, CA
• Waltham, MA
• Washington, DC
• Dayton, OH
• London (Park Lane)
• London (Alder Castle)
• Brussels
• Berlin
• Beijing
• Frankfurt
• Oxford

Attorneys and Lawyers

Notable attorneys and lawyers, past and present:

Hale and Dorr Fred Fisher Robert Mueller Reginald Heber Smith James St. Clair Joseph Welch William Weld

Wilmer Cutler & Pickering John Bellinger III Manuel Cohen Lloyd Cutler Stavros Lambrinidis Paul A. Engelmayer Sally Katzen John Pickering Barbara Olson James Robertson

WilmerHale Charlene Barshefsky Paul Brountas Jerome Facher Jamie Gorelick Robert Kimmitt William F. Lee William McLucas Michelle Miller William J. Perlstein Seth P. Waxman David W. Ogden Gary Born

External links

• WilmerHale
• WilmerHale History
• "Long, Long Law Firm Names Grow Short and Snappy," from The Boston Globe
• "WilmerHale: A Merger's Tale," from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly