Firm History

Foundation

Latham & Watkins was founded in January 1934 in Los Angeles, California by Dana Latham and Paul Watkins. Mr. Latham was an authority in the areas of US state and federal tax law and would eventually serve as Commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service under President Dwight Eisenhower. Mr. Watkins' main area of focus was in labor law, and he built a strong labor practice.

Mr. Latham and Mr. Watkins instilled in the firm the values of teamwork and a non-hierarchical management style. Those values were continued by Clint Stevenson — who served as Managing Partner of the firm for 21 years and who emphasized open communication and transparency between the management of the firm and the lawyers and staff — as well as the firm's two subsequent Managing Partners, Jack Walker and Bob Dell.

Although Latham & Watkins began with a focus on labor and tax law, the firm has grown into an international, full-service law practice with highly regarded practices in transactional, disputes and regulatory areas.

The ‘One Firm' Firm

When Latham & Watkins opened its doors in 1934, the firm consisted of three attorneys. The firm's growth was gradual in the early years. In 1950, firm headcount was 10 attorneys; in 1960, 19 attorneys. From 1960 to 1970, the firm saw significant growth, as attorney headcount jumped to 46 in 1970.

In response to the growth of the firm, the Executive Committee was established in 1967 and Clint Stevenson was named the firm's Managing Partner, a position he would hold until 1988. Under Mr. Stevenson's leadership, the firm built a management style that set it apart from many of its competitors. Latham & Watkins established a system of financial transparency that provides every attorney in the firm with access to monthly and annual financial reports. The firm also stressed a non-hierarchical approach to work and an emphasis on collaboration over individual success. “The firm prides itself on developing its own talent and de-emphasizing any individual's star status,” said The American Lawyer in a 1986 article about the firm.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the firm developed a system of internal committees to govern the firm and included associates on the majority of these committees. One of the most unique aspects of the firm's management culture is the Associates Committee, which was founded in 1971. The Associates Committee is responsible for the career development of the firm's associates, including decisions involving associate promotion to partnership and counsel positions. The Associates Committee is comprised of both partners and associates. Latham & Watkins is one of the few firms to involve associates in the promotion process. Associates also participate in the firm's Diversity Committee, Recruiting Committee, Pro Bono Committee and TACE (Training and Career Enhancement) Committee, among others, giving associates a major voice in the decisions that most impact the culture of the firm.

Latham's culture of inclusion and transparency has continued past Mr. Stevenson's term as the firm's Managing Partner. Jack Walker assumed the role in 1988. He began Latham's international growth and oversaw the firm's expansion into San Francisco, London, Moscow, Hong Kong and New Jersey. Mr. Walker guided the firm through the difficult financial period of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bob Dell took over the position in 1994 and remains the firm's Managing Partner today. Mr. Dell's tenure has been marked by the firm's significant growth in markets outside of the United States. Since the early 1990s, Latham has grown into an “international powerhouse” and one of the “global elite” law firms, according to Chambers Global.

In 1985, Latham & Watkins' management style and firm culture were praised in an article in the Sloan Management Review entitled, “The One-Firm Firm: What Makes It Successful.” In that article, management consultant David Maister analyzed five professional services firms that he said demonstrated the traits of a “one-firm firm.” Maister stated that one-firm firms: “[i]n contrast to many of their (often successful) competitors who emphasize individual entrepreneurialism, autonomous profit centers, internal competition and/or highly decentralized, independent activities, one-firm firms place great emphasis on firmwide coordination of decision making, group identity, cooperative teamwork, and institutional commitment.”

Latham & Watkins' “one-firm” culture has resulted in the firm being honored by a number of publications for being a leading innovator in law firm management. In 2006, Latham & Watkins was named the “most admired firm” in a survey conducted by The American Lawyer of The Am Law 200 firms. The American Lawyer noted that Latham's collaborative management philosophy has allowed the firm to maintain its strong firm culture through its various stages of expansion. In 2007, Latham & Watkins was named “Law Firm of the Decade” by UK-based publication Legal Business for being the law firm that best reacted to the immense challenges of the global legal industry over the previous 10 years and also demonstrated clear evidence of financial and strategic success over that period. In addition, the Financial Times has commended Latham & Watkins for its management style, naming Latham the most innovative US law firm in Europe in the 2007 and 2008 Financial Times Innovative Lawyers awards. In the 2008 awards, the Financial Times noted: "Overwhelmingly, the legal market's recommended US firm in Europe. Innovation permeates the DNA of this firm from management approach to culture. Continues to make top lateral hires."

Global Expansion

Latham & Watkins' growth from its roots in Los Angeles into an approximately 2,000 attorney, 27-office global law firm began gradually. The firm's second office, located in Orange County, was not launched until 1972. Six years later the firm added its third office in Washington, D.C. Office locations in San Diego, Chicago and New York followed in the 1980s, but it was not until 1990 that Latham's global push began. That year the firm opened its first office outside of the US, in London. Since that time, Latham has built one of the largest and deepest European practices of any US-legacy firm, with more than 400 lawyers based in Barcelona, Brussels, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Munich, Paris and Rome.

In 1994, the firm launched a practice in Asia by opening an office in Hong Kong. That practice has expanded into Tokyo, Singapore and Shanghai in subsequent years. Over the past 15 years, Latham has built a strong presence in Asia, representing US, European and Asian companies conducting business throughout the Asia Pacific region. The firm has been involved in some of the largest transactions in the history of the region, including a number in emerging Asian markets, such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia and India.

After years of representing client interests in the region, Latham & Watkins opened offices in the Middle East for the first time in 2008 with locations in Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi. The firm's primary focus in this region is on transactional work, especially in the energy and construction industries, and also in capital markets.

In the United States, Latham & Watkins has grown into one of the country's premier law firms. Since 1990, the firm has added offices in San Francisco, New Jersey and Silicon Valley, bringing the firm's US office total to 9. Latham & Watkins has been consistently recognized by The American Lawyer as one of the top US law firms through its inclusion in the Top 10 of The American Lawyer's prestigious A-List ranking, which was created in 2003 to determine, as objectively as possible, “the nation's elite — the law firms that are best at balancing a thriving business with their obligations to the profession.” The firm has also regularly appeared in the Top 10 of The American Lawyer's Am Law 100 ranking of top US law firms.

Part of what has made Latham & Watkins' global expansion so successful is that the firm does not have a headquarters. Members of the firm management are spread out throughout the firm and attorneys regularly work across offices and practice groups in support of the firm's clients.

Commitment to Community

Another important aspect of the culture of Latham & Watkins is its commitment to the communities in which it practices law through pro bono and community service.

In 1973, Latham & Watkins established the Professional and Community Relations Committee. This committee would eventually become the firm's Pro Bono Committee, which oversees the firm's practice of providing free legal services to low-income individuals and nonprofit organizations around the world. Over the years, Latham & Watkins has  become one of the largest providers of free legal services in the world.  For example, since 2000, Latham & Watkins has provided more than 1 million hours of pro bono legal services. Of particular note, in 2003 Latham was awarded the American Bar Association's prestigious Pro Bono Publico Award, which  recognized the firm's concerted effort to commit increasingly greater resources to pro bono in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Although the firm's pro bono efforts began principally in the US, as the concept of non-governmental, privately provided pro bono legal assistance has grown throughout the world, Latham's pro bono practice has likewise extended across the globe into Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Over the past few years, Latham & Watkins has been involved in pro bono projects ranging from advocating for refugee children in both individual cases as well as before the United States Congress, to helping the government of the war-torn Southern Sudan establish a new legal system, to working to overturn convictions of wrongly incarcerated death row inmates, to organizing the first European Pro Bono Forum in Budapest, Hungary in October 2007.

The firm also has a long tradition of sponsoring public interest fellowships through Equal Justice Works  (formerly NAPIL), designed to address the shortage of attorneys working on behalf of traditionally under-served populations by providing financial and technical support to young lawyers on innovative and effective legal projects. In addition to the thousands of Latham attorneys, summer associates, paralegals and professional staff who perform pro bono work year after year, the firm currently supports two Equal Justice Works fellows each year to address pressing community needs and help train a new generation of public interest attorneys.

Commitment to Diversity

Latham & Watkins also has a strong commitment to diversity. Latham's Diversity Committee monitors and addresses issues relating to achievement of the firm's equal opportunity and diversity objectives and is comprised of representatives from a number of the firm's other internal committees. The Diversity Committee has been responsible for a number of initiatives designed to increase diversity not only at the firm, but in the legal community as a whole.

In 2005, the firm launched the Latham & Watkins Diversity Scholars Program, which is designed to increase the number of diverse law students studying at ABA-accredited law schools who want to pursue a career in a global law firm and intend to practice law in the United States through the awarding of US$10,000 scholarships to four second-year law students.

Looking Forward

As the firm moves into its next 75 years, global expansion and enhancement of the firm's practices will continue to be a driving force. The firm continues to study additional opportunities to ensure that Latham & Watkins has the highest quality talent across all of the markets that most benefit the firm's clients. However, as Latham continues to grow, the firm remains committed to the “one-firm” culture that has allowed the firm to experience the successful growth that has marked its first 75 years.