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Patton Boggs LLP
Patton Boggs
HeadquartersWashington, D.C.
No. of offices9
No. of attorneys518 (2007)
No. of employees1000+
Major practice areasGeneral practice including lobbying
Key peopleThomas Hale Boggs, Jr., Chairman
Revenue$310,130,000 USD (2007)
Date founded1962
FounderJames R. Patton, Jr.
Company typeLimited liability partnership
Websitewww.pattonboggs.com

Patton Boggs is a full service law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. It has more than 600 lawyers and professionals in nine locations in the United States and the Middle East. Patton Boggs specializes in litigation, public policy, business, intellectual property, international and trade law with over 200 international clients from over 70 countries. In addition to the firm's Washington, D.C. headquarters, it maintains offices in New York City, Newark, Anchorage, Dallas, Denver, Northern Virginia, Doha, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The firm is one of American Lawyer's Top 100 US law firms and ranked in the top band of Government Relations law firms by Chambers USA. The firm is consistently ranked as the nation’s number one lobbying firm by the National Journal, Roll Call, Influence and The Hill Newspaper.

The firm’s business law practice has garnered recognition, including a #1 ranking among “Leading Legal Advisors” for number of deals closed by SNL Financial’s Bank M&A Weekly. In 2008, American Lawyer Media (ALM) named the firm a Go-To Law Firm® in the areas of corporate transactions/ mergers & acquisitions, securities, international, intellectual property, litigation, and labor & employment; and the firm was named a finalist for the “Best Islamic Finance Law Firm” by Islamic Business and Finance.

Patton Boggs is also one of American Banker’s Top 25 Lead Legal Advisors and the firm is included in the list of the world’s Top Patent Firms, according to Intellectual Property Today. The firm has been recognized by Working Mother Magazine as one of the best firms for women to work in part because of the flexibility and benefits it provides working mothers.



History

The firm was founded in 1962 by James R. Patton, Jr. and joined soon after by George Blow and then Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr. It has "participated in the formation of every major multilateral trade agreement considered by Congress."[1] Boggs joined the firm in 1966 after serving as an economist for the Joint Executive Committee and in the executive office of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Members of the firm have included: Timothy May, the former general counsel to the United States Post Office Department ; Ron Brown, who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and became Commerce Secretary in the first Clinton Administration; former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater; former Sen. John Breaux, D-La.; Stuart Pape, who held senior positions at the Food and Drug Administration; and Benjamin Ginsberg, the Republican strategist behind the 2000 presidential election Florida vote recount.

The 2008 Vault.com survey of 18,800 associates ranked Patton Boggs as having the second best record for pro bono work in the country. The Vault.com cited the firm’s active pro bono committee as one key factor in the firm’s rise to second place from fourth last year. The firm recommends that all lawyers do pro bono work. Each associate has a commitment to perform a minimum of 100 hours of pro bono service per year.

Additional Reading: I. The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation's Capital by Burt Solomon (Author)


Controversies

Patton Boggs has lobbied on behalf of the dietary supplement company Metabolife International. According to Associated Press, "Patton Boggs earned millions helping project reassurances to Congress and its customers that Metabolife products were safe. Patton Boggs attorneys helped prepare carefully worded responses to regulators. Between 2001 and this year, Metabolife paid Patton Boggs $1.8 million to lobby Congress."[2]

Patton Boggs' work for Metabolife has resulted in legal scrutiny: "One former and four current Patton Boggs attorneys were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in San Diego, court documents say. Prosecutors allege company founder Michael Ellis lied about Metabolife's safety record in a 1998 letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which documents say Patton Boggs attorneys helped draft. ... In mid 2002, Patton Boggs lobbyist Lanny Davis wrote a senator whose subcommittee was investigating Metabolife that the company had received only 78 'unproven, anecdotal allegations' of strokes, heart attacks, seizures and deaths." Company documents released just one week later revealed that the number of health complaints actually numbered in the thousands.

In April 2002, Members of Congress objected to a video prepared by Patton Boggs promoting exploration for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, hosted on the U.S. Interior Department's web site. The Department's distribution of the video was in apparent violation of a law forbidding federal agencies to engage in PR activities "designed to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress." The Department is becoming "a cinema house for lobbyists," says Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey. "The Interior Department should not be spreading oil company propaganda any more than the Department of Energy should be promoting Enron stock," he said. "It's not their job."[3]

According to the Haitian newspaper "Le Nouvelliste"[4] Patton Boggs was hired in 2007 by the Vicini family, one of the most influential and wealthiest families in the Dominican Republic, to bring a defamation suit against the producers of the documentary The Price of Sugar which depicts the living conditions of Haitian immigrant workers on the family's sugar plantations as well as death threats against Christopher Hartley, a Catholic priest working on behalf of the Haitian immigrants. The defamation suit against Uncommon Productions and producer Bill Haney alleges 53 factual inaccuracies."[5] According to an NPR interview conducted after the filing of the lawsuit, "'The misrepresentation are very egregious,' says Read McCaffrey, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs [representing the Vicinis], 'and as deceptive as I have seen in a very long time.'"

References

  1. ^ http://www.pattonboggs.com/about/Overview/ Patton Boggs "About Us"
  2. ^ Seth Hettena, Washington lobbying firm drawn into probe of Metabolife," Associated Press, October 16, 2004. (dead link)
  3. ^ Spin of the Day: April 2002 | Center for Media and Democracy
  4. ^ Le Nouvelliste
  5. ^ "Complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts"

Additional reading

Additional Reading:

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