This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| McDermott Will & Emery | |
|---|---|
| Name | McDermott Will & Emery |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois |
| Founded | 1934 |
| Founders | Robert H. McDermott; John L. Will; Gordon Emery |
| Num attorneys | ~1,200 |
| Offices | ~22 |
| Practice areas | Multinational corporate, health care, private equity, tax, litigation, intellectual property |
McDermott Will & Emery is an international law firm founded in 1934 with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. The firm advises clients across corporate, health care, tax, litigation, and private equity matters, serving multinational corporations, financial institutions, and health systems. Its work spans transactional, regulatory, and litigation matters involving major legal, financial, and regulatory institutions worldwide.
The firm was founded during the interwar period by Robert H. McDermott, John L. Will, and Gordon Emery, emerging from the same legal milieu that produced peers such as Sidley Austin, Kirkland & Ellis, Sullivan & Cromwell, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. In the post‑World War II era the firm expanded alongside developments in New Deal‑era regulation and the growth of United States Department of Justice enforcement, aligning its practices with contemporaneous trends at firms such as Jones Day and Latham & Watkins. Cross‑border expansion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries added offices and lateral hires from firms including DLA Piper, Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Baker McKenzie, and Hogan Lovells, facilitating work tied to European Union integration and World Trade Organization disputes. Strategic mergers and alliance moves mirrored those of White & Case and Greenberg Traurig, positioning the firm in markets such as London, New York City, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, and Brussels.
Practice groups include corporate and transactional work similar to teams at Goldman Sachs‑counselled deals, health care regulatory practice comparable to advisers for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and tax groups active in matters akin to disputes before the Internal Revenue Service and United States Tax Court. The firm advises on mergers and acquisitions, private equity deals reflecting patterns at Blackstone, The Carlyle Group, and KKR, and intellectual property litigation paralleling matters seen at Apple Inc., Microsoft, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson. Health care clients include hospitals, health systems, and life sciences firms dealing with regulatory regimes like those of the Food and Drug Administration and reimbursement frameworks involving Medicare and Medicaid. The firm’s litigation teams handle antitrust matters involving agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and European Commission, securities litigation before the Securities and Exchange Commission, and class actions in federal courts including the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
The firm operates a partnership model with global practice group leadership and functional committees akin to governance structures at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Offices are located in major financial and regulatory centers such as Chicago, New York City, London, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Frankfurt am Main, Brussels, Milan, and Tokyo, enabling cross‑border coordination with courts like the High Court of Justice and arbitral forums including the International Chamber of Commerce. The firm’s management has featured chairs and chief executives recruited from networks overlapping with firms such as Davis Polk & Wardwell and Ropes & Gray, and it maintains practice alliances with corporate counsel teams at multinational corporations such as ExxonMobil and General Electric.
The firm has been involved in large mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, and complex litigation matters comparable to landmark deals handled by advisers to Bayer, AbbVie, and Novartis. It has represented clients in health care regulatory settlements analogous to enforcement actions by the Department of Health and Human Services and fraud investigations resembling matters pursued by the Department of Justice. The firm’s partners have advised on cross‑border financings and capital markets offerings similar to securities deals overseen by the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and have litigated intellectual property disputes touching companies like Abbott Laboratories and Merck & Co..
The firm emphasizes diversity initiatives and affinity networks similar to programs at BakerHostetler and WilmerHale, with recruitment pipelines to law schools such as Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Columbia Law School, University of Chicago Law School, and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Pro bono work has included representation in civil rights matters before courts like the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and asylum matters before immigration tribunals including the Executive Office for Immigration Review, aligning with pro bono practices at firms such as Arnold & Porter and Morrison & Foerster.
The firm has received rankings from legal directories and publications similar to assessments by Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500, and its lawyers have been recognized in lists such as The American Lawyer’s AmLaw 100 and rankings by Vault (company). Practice groups have earned recognition in sectors like health care, tax, and private equity, placing alongside ranked practices at Paul Hastings and Debevoise & Plimpton.
Like many large firms including Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Kirkland & Ellis, the firm has faced scrutiny over client representations and conflicts of interest in complex matters before agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and tribunals like the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. Litigation involving fee disputes, partner departures, and regulatory inquiries has paralleled disputes seen at McGuireWoods and McDermott, Will & Emery‑contemporary firms, prompting governance reviews and internal compliance enhancements.
Category:Law firms based in Chicago