Seyfarth Shaw

Seyfarth Shaw LLP
HeadquartersWillis Tower
Chicago, U.S.
No. of offices17
No. of attorneys970 [1]
Major practice areasGeneral practice
Revenue $932 million USD (2024) (+6%)[2]
Date founded1945 (Chicago)
FounderHenry Seyfarth, Lee Shaw, and Owen Fairweather
Company typeLimited liability partnership
Websitewww.seyfarth.com

Seyfarth Shaw LLP (/ˈsaɪfɑːrθ/ SY-farth)[3] is an international AmLaw 100 law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in Chicago in 1945 by Henry Seyfarth, Lee Shaw, and Owen Fairweather, Seyfarth Shaw initially focused on the area of labor law.[4]

As of 2025, the firm was among the most profitable law firms in the United States[5] with approximately 1,000 attorneys[6]

Lorie Almon was elected chair in 2023 and assumed the position of chair and managing partner of the firm on January 1, 2024.[7] She is the first woman to hold that title at Seyfarth.[8]

Seyfarth Shaw has 17 offices globally. This includes 13 active offices in 12 U.S. cities: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles (two offices), New York, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.[9] The firm has four international locations, including Hong Kong, Melbourne, Sydney, and London.[9]

History

Early years

Attorneys Henry Seyfarth, Lee C. Shaw, and Owen Fairweather established Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago in 1945. All three attorneys met while associates at the firm of Pope & Ballard which originally focused on the area of labor law.[10]

  • Henry Seyfarth (1908-1991)[11] graduated from the University of Illinois in 1928 and two years later received his J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School.[11] He served as an assistant state’s attorney in Cook County from 1930 to 1935 and as partner of the law firm Pope & Ballard from 1935 to 1945 before joining with Shaw and Fairweather to launch their own firm.[11] While at Pope & Ballard, he, along with Shaw and Fairweather, represented corporate clients.[12]
  • Lee Shaw (1913-1999)[13] was born in Red Wing, Minnesota. He later enrolled at the University of Michigan where he played football as an offensive and defensive lineman alongside future President Gerald Ford.[13] He later earned a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 1938. Following the passage of the of the Wagner Act in 1935, which established the rights of workers to bargain collectively, Pope & Ballard set out to create a specialty in the field of labor law, concentrating on representing corporate and management interests in labor relations.[12] Shaw helped draft the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, also known as the Taft-Hartley Act. He was named to the drafting panel after serving on the National War Labor Board, which was responsible for monitoring labor issues in World War II.[13]
  • Owen Fairweather (1914-1987) earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1935 where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity.[14] He then graduated cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School[15] in 1938.[16] He served on the National War Labor Board in Washington, D.C., during World War II.[15] In 1945, he and his two colleagues, Henry Seyfarth and Lee Shaw, left Pope & Ballard to form their own firm, taking their corporate clients with them.[12] The Owen Fairweather Scholarship Fund at the University of Chicago Law School was established in 1987.[17]

Growth and expansion

By 1964, the firm was known as Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, having incorporated the name of partner Ray Geraldson.[18]

In 1971, the firm established a presence in Washington, D.C. and expanded into legislative and regulatory affairs.[19]

After years of strikes, picketing, boycotts and solidarity actions in support of California farmworkers — such as the Delano grape strike and the Salad Bowl strike — the firm opened an office in Los Angeles in 1973, seeking to represent farmowners in labor negotiations against United Farm Workers. The struggle ultimately led to the enactment of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which established the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state.[20][21]

The firm further expanded throughout the 1970s and 1980s, opening offices in New York City (1978) and San Francisco (1984).[22]

In 1990, the firm opened its first international office in Brussels, Belgium in order to assist corporate clients in the European Economic Community.[23][24] The firm further expanded through the 1990s, opening offices in Sacramento (1990), Houston (1995), Atlanta (1996) and Boston (1999).[25]

In 1999, the firm, wanting to change the perception that it "only did employment law and only practiced in Chicago," rebranded and shortened its name to Seyfarth Shaw.[26]

21st century

From 2000 to 2003, the firm underwent a series of strategic mergers: with McCullough Sherrill in 2000, Chappell White in 2001, and D’Ancona & Pflaum in 2003.[27][28]

The firm further expanded internationally in the 2010s, opening offices in:

An acquisition of nearly two dozen attorneys from Atlanta-based Morris, Manning & Martin to the Atlanta office in 2025 expanded the firm’s national transactional footprint [33] across middle market corporate, hospitality, real estate private equity, fund formation, and tax practices.[34] [35]

Amid geopolitical tensions and an exodus of American law firms from mainland China, the Shanghai office was closed in 2025.[36][37]

In 2026, the New York-based boutique firm Mukasey Young dissolved to join Seyfarth.[38] The trial-focused team expanded the firm’s capabilities in white collar defense, complex litigation, and health care regulatory matters.[39]

Starting in 2004, managing partner J. Stephen Poor began encouraging the use of sophisticated management systems to drive efficiency as a way to modernize legal service delivery.[40] The following year, Poor championed the launch of SeyfarthLean, a team of 15 project managers dedicated to applying lean principles to legal work.[41] In 2008, the firm launched SeyfarthLean Consulting, which offered process improvement services to clients and their in-house legal departments.[42]

The firm established a Legal Technology Innovations Office in 2012 to explore how software could enhance client-facing legal services.[43] [44] This initiative led to the creation of Seyfarth Labs in 2016, bringing together 21 lawyers and software engineers to develop new tools and platforms.[45] Seyfarth Labs became one of the first innovation incubators launched within a law firm.[45] Some of the projects launched by the Seyfarth Labs team includes automated contract and discovery templates, a real-time COVID-19 resource tracker, and digital intake tools supporting the transition to electric vehicles.[46]

In 2017, Seyfarth partnered with software company Blue Prism to develop robotic process automation (RPA) solutions designed to handle repetitive tasks, freeing attorneys to focus on more strategic legal work.[47]

The firm has been recognized for legal innovation and business process improvement.[48] They were among the first to embrace Lean Six Sigma in legal project management,[46] an initiative later profiled in a Harvard Law School case study.[49]

In 2024, the firm invited its attorneys and professional staff to propose solutions to pressing legal or business issues. The inaugural competition generated 59 submissions, including an AI-assisted pre-bill review tool, an AI-enhanced playbook for client and deal teams, and contextualized training modules for associates.[50] The winning project was later developed into a practical tool by Seyfarth Labs.[51] A second internal competition was held in 2025.[52]

Awards and recognition

Notable lawyers and alumni

Rankings

The American Lawyer ranks Seyfarth 61st on its annual AmLaw 200 ranking of the largest U.S. law firms by revenue.[69] The National Law Journal's "NLJ 500" 2025 list ranks Seyfarth 63rd among the largest law firms in the United States.[69] Top Legal 500,[70] U.S. News & World Report[71] and Best Lawyers 2025 “Best Law Firms” awarded Seyfarth’s IP group a National Tier 1 ranking.[72]

References

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