Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, which also goes by the shorter market name WilmerHale, is a leading
American law firm with major offices in Washington, Boston and New York and smaller offices in Palo Alto, Baltimore, London, Brussels, Beijing, Berlin, Los Angeles,and Waltham, Massachusetts. It was created in 2004 through the merger of the Boston-based firm Hale and Dorr and the
Washington-based firm Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, and employs more than 1,100 attorneys worldwide. As of 2006, it was the
18th largest law firm in the world.
History
Hale and Dorr was founded in Boston in 1918 by Richard Hale, Dudley Dorr, Frank Grinnell, Roger Swaim and John Maguire.
Reginald Heber Smith, author of the seminal work Justice and the Poor and a pioneer in the
American legal aid movement, joined the firm in 1919 and served as managing partner for thirty
years. Hale and Dorr gained national recognition in 1954 when partner Joseph Welch,
assisted by associate James St. Clair, represented the U.S. Army on a pro bono basis during the historic
Army-McCarthy hearings. In 1988, partner Paul
Brountas chaired the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor Michael
Dukakis, and in 1990, senior partner William Weld was elected governor. The firm has
had a long and mutually profitable relationship with nearby Harvard Law School, alma
mater of more than a fifth of WilmerHale's current lawyers, and home of the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center. [1]
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering was founded in Washington in 1962 by former Cravath attorneys Lloyd Cutler and John Pickering, along with a senior lawyer, Richard Wilmer. Cutler, who later
served as White House Counsel to Presidents Jimmy
Carter and Bill Clinton, founded the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
in 1962, and served on its executive committee until 1987. In the 1980s, Cutler led the founding of the Southern Africa Legal
Services and Legal Education Project, to aid South African lawyers who fought to implement
the rule of law during apartheid. From 1981 to 1993,
partner C. Boyden Gray left the firm to serve as White House Counsel to Vice President
and President George H.W. Bush. In 2003, partner Jamie Gorelick began serving as a member of the 9/11
Commission.
The two firms merged to form Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in 2004. [2]
Reputation
WilmerHale is currently ranked 14th in the popular Vault "prestige" ranking of the top hundred
American law firms (including second in Boston and third in Washington, DC), and 8th on the American Lawyer "A-List" of the nation's twenty leading law firms based on revenue per lawyer,
pro bono work, associate satisfaction, and diversity. [3] According to the British magazine Legal Week,
the firm ranks 14th among American law firms in terms of total revenue. [4]
Clients
Large clients
Among the major companies that have recently been represented by WilmerHale attorneys include Bayer, Bear Stearns, Boeing,
Bose, Boston Scientific, Cephalon, Citigroup, Credit
Suisse First Boston, DaimlerChrysler, Danaher, Deutsche Bank, Educational Testing Service, Fannie
Mae, General Electric, John
Hancock, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers,
Lufthansa, Morgan Stanley, Novartis, Pfizer, Procter &
Gamble, Prudential, Red Hat, Sepracor, Staples, UBS, Verizon and The Washington Post. [5]
A Civil Action
In the late 1980s, Hale and Dorr partner Jerome Facher successfully represented
Beatrice Foods in a suit by eight families from Woburn, Massachusetts who claimed that Beatrice, along with
W.R. Grace, had polluted the town's water supply, resulting in an elevated number
of leukemia cases and immune-system disorders. The case was memorialized in the controversial book A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr, and in a movie of the same
name starring Robert Duvall as Facher and John
Travolta as plaintiffs' lawyer Jan Schlichtmann. [6]
Enron and WorldCom reports
In the wake of news articles raising concerns about transactions between Enron and its
CFO, Andy Fastow, lawyers from Wilmer
Cutler & Pickering represented a special investigative committee of Enron's board of directors in an internal investigation
into those transactions. The resulting report, known as the "Powers Report," laid out
the facts that have been the predicate for much of the public discussion of Enron since that time. [7]
Similarly, after WorldCom's announcement that it would have to restate financial statements,
the firm represented a special investigative committee of WorldCom's board of directors in performing an internal investigation
into the accounting irregularities. The investigation resulted in a widely-covered written report that detailed a variety of
accounting issues as well as the role of management and the board of directors. [8]
Other notable and controversial clients
In 1986, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering represented corporate raider Ivan Boesky in
high-profile Department of Justice and SEC proceedings, as well as multiple class actions based on his alleged
participation in insider trading violations.
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering represented Swiss banks accused of profiting
from the Holocaust in their settlement negotiations with plaintiffs. The firm also represented Siemens AG, Krupp AG, and other German companies accused of exploiting forced
laborers during the Nazi era. [9]
Since 2005, WilmerHale has represented Senator William Frist with regards to an SEC
insider trading investigation.[10]
Pro bono
Both Hale and Dorr and Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering have a long history of involvement in pro bono work. Not surprisingly, WilmerHale has ranked at or near the top of The American Lawyer's pro bono ranking since the merger. In recent years, the firm has
been involved in several high-profile cases. Among other things, it has:
- Represented Senators John McCain and Russ
Feingold and other sponsors of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
(known popularly as "McCain-Feingold") in defending the Act's constitutionality. Again, Seth Waxman argued the case in front of
the Supreme Court, which upheld all of the core provisions of the Act.
- Represented the University of Michigan for six years, after its
affirmative action policy was challenged as unconstitutional. The lawyers argued the
cases in the Sixth Circuit and in the Supreme
Court, which held, in Grutter v. Bollinger, that universities have a
compelling interest in achieving the educational benefits of a racially diverse student body.
Guantanamo controversy
A team of WilmerHale attorneys currently represents the “Algerian Six”, a group of men who fell under suspicion of planning to attack the US embassy in
Bosnia and who are now held in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. [11]
In 2006, attorney Melissa Hoffer, then part of the team with WilmerHale, delivered a
speech in
Caen, France, critical of U.S. detainee policy. Other WilmerHale lawyers participating in the case
include Stephen Oleskey[12][13], Rob Kirsch[14][15], Mark C. Fleming[16], Lynne Campbell Soutter[17], and Lauren Brunswick[18].
In January of 2007, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee
affairs, criticized WilmerHale and other major law firms for representing "the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back
in 2001," and questioned whether such work was really being done pro bono or might
actually receive funding from shadowy sources. [19] In a Wall Street Journal
editorial criticizing Stimson, Harvard Law School professor (and former United
States Solicitor General) Charles Fried wrote:
| “ |
"It is no surprise that firms like Wilmer Hale (which represents both Big Pharma
and Tobacco Free Kids), Covington & Burling (which represents both Big
Tobacco and Guantanamo detainees), and the other firms on Mr. Stimson's hit list, are among the most sought-after by law school
graduates, and retain the loyalty and enthusiasm of their partners. They offer their lawyers the profession at its best, and help
assure that the rule of law is not just a slogan but a satisfying way of life." [20] |
” |
Attorneys
Notable attorneys, past and present:
WilmerHale
- Charlene Barshefsky
- Paul Brountas
- Stephen Cutler
- Jerome Facher
- Jamie Gorelick
- C. Boyden Gray
- Robert Kimmitt
- William F. Lee
- William McLucas
- William J. Perlstein
- Seth P. Waxman
Hale and Dorr
- Fred Fisher
- Robert Mueller
- Reginald Heber Smith
- James St. Clair
- Joseph Welch
- William Weld
Wilmer Cutler & Pickering
External links
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