Boies Schiller Flexner LLP

Started in 1997, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP is a relative newcomer to the elite firm ranks, and its principal offices are in New York; Washington, DC; California; Florida; the United Kingdom; and Italy. As one of the nation’s premier litigation shops, Boies Schiller Flexner is no stranger to heavy-hitter clients, which have included American Express, Antara Capital, the Baltimore Orioles, Booking.com, Carnival Corporation, the Cherokee Nation, Davidson Kempner, Delta Air Lines, the New York Yankees, NextEra Energy, Philip Morris, Redbird Capital Partners, Red Granite Pictures, Sony, and United Healthcare.

Game Changer

A star litigator at Cravath for 30 years, David Boies knocked heads with the firm when he decided to represent Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in a lawsuit against the MLB. Boies’ representation of Steinbrenner posed a conflict of interest for Cravath because its long-time client, Time Warner, owned the Atlanta Braves. In a story that made the front page of The New York Times, 48 hours after receiving an ultimatum to drop the Steinbrenner case, Boies hung up his Cravath hat. Within a matter of months, he persuaded Jonathan Schiller, a litigation and international arbitration specialist and partner at Kaye Scholer, to join him. By the end of 1999, Donald Flexner, a partner from Crowell & Moring’s antitrust group, was also on board at the new firm. Today, the firm is run by Chairman and Managing Partner Matthew L. Schwartz and Co-managing Partners Sigrid McCawley and Stuart Singer.

Litigation All-Stars

Boies Schiller Flexner is known for its litigation prowess. Most of its work revolves around high-stakes, complex litigation. Boies Schiller Flexner’s litigation practice is broad and includes antitrust, appellate, constitutional law, class action, commercial, cybersecurity and data privacy, employment, First Amendment, global investigations, intellectual property, family law, product liability, securities and shareholder litigation, sports law, and white collar defense matters. The firm is in the top 25 of Vault’s General Commercial Litigation and Appellate Litigation practice area rankings. The firm was named to The National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List in 2023 because lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner are regulars in the Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals. Some of the firm’s past Supreme Court cases include Bush v. Gore, Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Pennzoil v. Texaco, and Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation. Moreover, the firm’s groups include dozens of former state and federal appellate clerks and multiple former U.S. Supreme Court clerks.

Whistling to the Boies Tune

Boies Schiller Flexner is anything but conventional. Its New York office at Hudson Yards, for example, replaced associate offices with an open floor plan, which the firm describes as “a collaborative floor plan with both shared and private space.” Although many of its peers pay their associates lockstep bonuses, Boies Schiller Flexner takes a unique approach, basing bonuses on a formula that accounts for hours billed, business generation, and work on contingency-based matters, among other factors.

COVID-19 Update

In 2021, our summer associates experienced a mix of virtual and in-person events. With restrictions being lifted in many cities where we have offices, we implemented a voluntary return several days per week while continuing to follow best practices for COVID-related safety protocols. This allowed summer associates to meet attorneys in person and gain a better sense of the office environment at BSF. We also built upon the success of our virtual program in 2020 by holding a number of events remotely, bringing the entire summer class together for social events like trivia night and a mixology class, as well as to engage with our DEI affinity groups and others throughout the firm. Through both approaches, we continued to focus on giving summer associates meaningful work experiences as well as the opportunity to get to know one another and BSF.

• In Hollingsworth v. Perry, BSF won a landmark SCOTUS ruling finding that backers of Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban, lacked standing to appeal a district court's decision that the law was unconstitutional. The ruling paved the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California, setting an important precedent in the gay rights movement.
• BSF achieved a historic $4.1 billion recovery, the largest ever for a private plaintiff in an antitrust case, for American Express against Visa and Mastercard for prohibiting their member banks from offering credit cards that could be used on rival payment networks.
• BSF has achieved numerous wins on behalf of victims of Jeffrey Epstein, contributing to his arrest and the arrests of his key co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell and French modeling agent Jean Luc Brunel. Following the firm’s successful application of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, resulting in a combined $365 million recovery, we secured preliminary approval of a $72.5 million settlement with Bank of America.
• In a class action against Blue Cross Blue Shield, BSF secured the largest ever monetary recovery—$2.7 billion—in an antitrust case that was not the subject of government enforcement, as well as significant injunctive relief to improve competition in the health insurance market.

• Compass Award, 2025—Leadership Council on Legal Diversity
• Equality 100 Award, 2026— Human Rights Campaign 
• Class Action Practice Group of the Year, 2025—Law360
• Litigation Department of the Year, 2025—Daily Business Review
• Outstanding Arbitration Firm or Team, 2025—International Legal Finance Association