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| Headquarters | 2222Market Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| No. of offices | 31 |
| No. of attorneys | 2,200 |
| Major practice areas | Corporate Law, Labor and Employment, Litigation, Regulatory, Intellectual Property, Energy and Environmental, Financial services, Healthcare and life sciences, Retail and E-commerce, Technology |
| Key people | Jami Wintz McKeon, Firm Chair |
| Revenue |  US$3.01 billion (2024)[1] |
| Date founded | March 10, 1873; 152 years ago (1873-03-10) |
| Founders | |
| Company type | Limited liability partnership |
| Website | www |
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Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (known asMorgan Lewis) is an Americanwhite-shoe internationallaw firm headquartered inPhiladelphia. Founded in 1873, the firm has approximately 2,200 legal professionals across 31 offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Morgan Lewis advises clients in industries energy, finance, technology, and life sciences, and represents three-quarters of theFortune 100 companies.
The firm is known for itspro bono representations and for filing a historicamicus brief in theU.S. Supreme Court in 2015 on behalf of 379 companies, making a business case for legalizingsame-sex marriage across the country. Morgan Lewis is the largest law firm chaired by a woman, Jami McKeon.[2]
Morgan Lewis was founded inPhiladelphia on March 10, 1873, byCivil War veteranCharles Eldridge Morgan, Jr., who later served as the Philadelphia Law Academy's vice president,[3][4] andFrancis Draper Lewis, son of a wholesaledry goods merchant, whose first cousin wasWilliam Draper Lewis,[5] the dean of theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School.
In 1883, Morgan & Lewis hired Morris Rex Bockius, who had graduated in June of that year with Master of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees from theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School.[6] He became a partner fifteen years after he joined the firm, which he then led until his death in 1939. The firm became Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in 1908, though it is still commonly referred to by itssobriquet, "Morgan Lewis."[7][8]
The firm began representing the United Gas Improvement Company, later UGI, in 1882; it became the largest gas and electric utility company in the United States and remained a client of the firm well over a century later. From the early 20th century, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius represented many other companies, including Philadelphia's largest daily newspaper, ThePhiladelphia Bulletin; Pennsylvania's largest railroad, Baldwin Locomotive Works; Scott Paper; and several major banks and trust companies.[9][10]
The firm has adhered to theCravath System, a standardized compensation model used by many elite BigLaw firms. Under this system, associate salaries and bonuses increase predictably with seniority and are typically aligned with industry benchmarks.[11]
In 1963, Morgan Lewis hired its first female law associate, Gail McKnight Beckman, daughter of Pennsylvania's Deputy Secretary of Banking Irland McKnight Beckman and family psychology author Elizabeth B. Hurlock.[12] In 1980, Stephanie Abramson became its first female law partner; she was later an adjunct professor of clinical law and director of law and business experiential classes atNew York University School of Law.[13][14]
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius originally held thedomain nameMLB.com, which it transferred toMajor League Baseball in September 2000.[15] MLB CommissionerRob Manfred, elected in 2015, is an alumnus of the firm.[16]
In 2014, Jami Wintz McKeon, who joined the firm in 1981, became its first female chair. Re-elected in 2018, she has supported flexible work, such asremote options, and earned honors including a 2017 "Client Service All-Star" title from BTT Consulting Group and a "Business Hall of Fame Icon" award fromThe Philadelphia Inquirer. Under her leadership, Morgan Lewis expanded globally and received annual Gold Standard Certification from the Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF).[17][18][19][20] During McKeon's tenure, the firm has continued to scale its national and international presence, growing into one of thelargest law firms in the world.[21]
In 2012Ted Cruz, a Morgan Lewis partner and head of the U.S. Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation practice, left Morgan Lewis upon becoming a United States Senator.[22][23]
In 2015, Morgan Lewis filed a historicamicus brief for the definitive Supreme Court case ofObergefell v. Hodges, on behalf of 379 companies, includingApple,Google,Microsoft,Amazon,Walmart,JPMorgan Chase, and theNew England Patriots,[24] which argued "a business case for legalizing same-sex marriage across the country."[25][26] Partner Susan Baker Manning, who authored the brief,[27] in 2018 was added as a full-time senior trial lawyer to the firm'spro bono group led by senior counsel Rachel Strong, with focus remaining primarily on refugee and civil rights,[28] and "issue-based litigation", according to firm chair Jami McKeon.[29] The firm is an affiliate firm of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA).[30]
In February 2018, Morgan Lewis published findings of its investigation intosexual harassment atNPR, led by labor and employment partner Grace Speights, with Margaret Rodgers Schmidt and associate Jocelyn Cuttino. The findings precipitated the resignation of NPR's senior vice-president of news,Michael Oreskes.[31] Morgan Lewis recommendations were noted as offering "broad guidance for companies that are taking fresh looks at their own practices."[32] That same month,Wayne Pacelle, formerCEO of theHumane Society of the United States, also resigned amid similar allegations, while under investigation by the firm;The National Law Journal referenced Morgan Lewis as working on the "front lines" in representing cases central to "long-overdue reforms in workplaces toxic to women."[33]
In April 2018, former Morgan Lewis partnerJohn Ring was confirmed by the U.S. Senate for a seat on theNational Labor Relations Board, one of several firm partners who have served on the NLRB, including Harry Johnson and senior counsel Charles Cohen.[34]
In March 2019,Chai Feldblum, formerEqual Employment Opportunity Commission member and lead drafter of theEmployment Non-Discrimination Act,[35] became a partner of Morgan Lewis, then stating toBloomberg Law that the move from public service to a "Big Law management-side firm", considered unusual, was the best way to help employers implement theworkplace harassment guidelines outlined by herself andVictoria Lipnic at theEEOC, describing the firm as "the place from which to help make that institutional change”, of preventing harassment in the workplace.[36]
In November 2023, amid clashes at some universities following the start of the2023 Israel-Hamas war; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius was among more than two dozen law firms that submitted a letter to 14 American law school deans, denouncinganti-Semitism,Islamophobia, andracism, and advising those mentoring future law graduates of entrenched workplace policies against harassment ordiscrimination at their firms.[37]
In February 2025, Morgan Lewis hired a team of five IP litigation partners, Ali Razai, Benjamin Anger, Benjamin Everton, Brandon Smith, and Jacob Peterson, from Knobbe Martens.[38]
Morgan Lewis was among the avant garde of multinational law firms when its first international office opened inLondon in 1981[39] and, today, includes more than 2000 legal professionals worldwide,[40] with 32 offices: in Abu Dhabi; Beijing; Boston; Brussels; Century City, California; Chicago; Costa Mesa, California; Dallas; Dubai; Frankfurt; Hartford, Connecticut; Hong Kong; Houston; Almaty andAstana, Kazakhstan; London; Los Angeles; Miami; Moscow; New York; Palo Alto (Silicon Valley), California; Paris; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Princeton, New Jersey; San Francisco; Seattle; Shanghai; Singapore; Tokyo; Washington, D.C.; and Wilmington, Delaware.[41]
On November 14, 2014, Morgan Lewis's partnership voted to admit 227 partners fromBingham McCutchen LLP into the firm as partners, scaling Morgan Lewis into one of the largest law firms in the world, with the addition of 750 partners, attorneys, and staff joining Morgan Lewis on November 24, 2014.[42][43] On March 15, 2015, Morgan Lewis and Singapore's Stamford Law Corporation announced a combination that created a fully integrated law firm in Singapore. The combination established a business transactions, litigation, and arbitration practice to serve clients with interests in Singapore and across the expanding Asian marketplace.[44][45]
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius clients include 75 per cent of allFortune 100 companies, nearly 300Fortune 500 companies, 65 Fortune Global 100 companies, and nearly half of allFortune Global 500 companies. Morgan Lewis has also been named among the top 10 BigLaw firm ranked bypro bono hours,[46] with over 1800pro bono clients,[29] and 117,000 hours contributed to 2,234pro bono matters by firm attorneys in 2018.[28]
Notable pro bono clients include John Thompson (1963–2017), represented by Michael L. Banks and J. Gordon Cooney Jr., whose execution was stayed in 1999 based on forensic evidence which had been "deliberately hidden" by a former assistant prosecutor; Thompson was finally freed in 2003.[47] A book based on Thompson's legal misfortunes,Killing Time: An 18-year Odyssey from Death Row to Freedom, by John Hollway and Ronald M. Gauthier, was optioned for a film byTouchstone Pictures in 2009.[48] Attorneys Christina K. Harper and George Cumming waged a successful 11-year pro bono legal battle to gain freedom for Kelly Savage, whose sentence for a 1995 murder conviction was commuted in 2017 by California GovernorJerry Brown.[49][50][51]
Represented pro bono by Morgan Lewis & Bockius, withLambda Legal andImmigration Equality;[52] in October 2020, theUnited States Department of State withdrew its appeal of the verdict inKiviti v. Pompeo, and declined to appealMize-Gregg v. Pompeo.[53] Federal district courts ruled the State Department's refusal to recognize children born oversees to married same-sex, American citizen couples as U.S. citizens to be unlawful in both cases.[52][54] Morgan Lewis partner Susan Baker Manning argued both cases, successfully challenging the State Department's policy of denying children born outside of the U.S. to some American same-sex, married couples birthright citizenship.[52]
As outside counsel, the firm has representedElon Musk, including in a lawsuit filed by formerTwitter executives, in April 2024, alleging that Musk andX Corp withheld severance pay.[55]
Morgan Lewis has represented several prominent politicians in various venues, including:
In 2025, Morgan Lewis was named No. 1 best law firm for compensation and the No. 2 best law firm to work for byVault.[61] The firm also placed 10th in The American Lawyer's 2025ALM AmLaw 200 list, which ranks U.S. firms by gross revenue.[62] In 2024, Vault ranked the firm No. 1 forpro bono.[63]
Morgan Lewis ranked 10th in the 2024 Global 200 survey. In September 2024,The Lawyer recognized Morgan Lewis as one of the top 10 international firms in its Global Litigation 50 report.[62]
In 2023, the firm ranked No. 9 globally among thelargest law firms by revenue.[64] The same year, Morgan Lewis received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index, receiving an Equality 100 Award.[65] Since 2008, Morgan Lewis has been named annually as among the "Best Places to Work forLGBT Equality" by theHuman Rights Campaign (HRC).[66]
In 2018, the Justice and Diversity Center (JDC) awarded Morgan Lewis its "Outstanding Law Firm in Public Service Award" for exceptional pro bono of JDC Legal Services and Diversity programs.[67] That August, Morgan Lewis was among the 41 law firms to receive the first Mansfield Certifications, awarded for diversity hiring practices.[68]
In 2016 and 2017, Morgan Lewis was named among "America's Best Corporate Law Firms" by theNYSE Governance Service andFTI Consulting, Inc.[69][70]
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