Sidley Austin
 |
|
| Headquarters |
One South Dearborn Chicago, Illinois |
|---|---|
| No. of offices | 20 Worldwide |
| No. of attorneys | 1,900 |
| No. of employees | about 3,440 (Dec 2012) |
| Major practice areas | General practice |
| Revenue |
 $1.87 billion USD (2015) |
| Date founded | 1866 |
| Founder | Norman Williams and John Leverett Thompson |
| Company type | Limited liability partnership |
| Website | |
| www.sidley.com | |
Sidley Austin LLP, formerly known as Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, is the sixth-largest U.S.-based corporate law firm with 1900 lawyers and annual revenues of more than one billion dollars. The firm is one of the highest paying companies in the U.S., and it has offices in 20 cities worldwide, with the most recent addition of Munich in 2016. It is a full-service law firm, with broad experience in transaction and litigation matters. Its original predecessor firm was founded in 1866 and had former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, then the widow of President Abraham Lincoln, among its earliest clients. The firm was formed as the result of the merger of two firms: the Chicago-based Sidley & Austin, founded in 1866, and the New York-based Brown & Wood, founded in 1914. The merger was completed in May 2001. The firm's headquarters is at One South Dearborn in Chicago's Loop.
In each year since the survey's inception, Sidley has received more First-Tier National Rankings than any other U.S. law firm in the Best Law Firms Survey by U.S. News & World Report. The 2015 US News Survey also named Sidley as the "Law Firm of the Year" in International Trade and Finance Law as well as Litigation – Securities. As of 2014, it was the 13th largest law firm in the world (and 8th in the US) by revenue.
The firm that was to become Sidley Austin was formed in Chicago in 1866 by Norman Williams and John Leverett Thompson as the partnership of Williams & Thompson. One of the nascent firm's first clients was the Pullman Company, the manufacturer of specialty sleeping railway cars. Other early clients included Western Union Telegraph Company, which moved its Midwest headquarters from Cleveland to Chicago in 1869. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the firm represented numerous insurance companies including Equitable Life Assurance Society. In 1892, William Pratt Sidley joined the firm after having earned an LLB from Union College of Law and a M.A. from Harvard Law School. By 1913, the firm's name was changed to Holt, Cutting & Sidley, although Sidley would be the guiding personality for the Chicago firm through the 20th century. Three years later—the firm then fifty years old—had four partners, four clerks (associates), and ten staff employees with gross income of around $100,000 (roughly $1.9 million in 2008 dollars).
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