Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

Founded in 1908, Davis Wright Tremaine has worked with small clients and Fortune 500 companies. The firm maintains a focus on litigation and entertainment, environmental, intellectual property (IP), and employment law. Today, the firm has more than 600 attorneys in 9 domestic offices.

Winning the West Coast

More than eight decades after it kick-started its practice in Seattle, Davis Wright Tremaine merged with another reputable Seattle firm and began expanding throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. In Anchorage, AK, Davis Wright Tremaine made headlines by serving as lead counsel in a 30,000-plaintiff lawsuit filed by seafood and fishing industry interests against Exxon Valdez for the massive 1989 oil spill off the coast of Alaska. Gradually, the firm established a string of offices dotting the West Coast, snagging prominent West Coast Clients such as Microsoft, Starbucks, and The Seattle Times, and in 1991, it became the first Seattle-based firm to open up shop in San Francisco. 

The firm expanded to the East Coast in 1981 after it acquired a Washington, DC, telecommunications boutique, and it made its move into the Big Apple in 1998. The firm also expanded its footprint by merging with the financial services boutique McGonigle in 2022.

That’s Entertainment

Davis Wright Tremaine has continued to expand its core practice areas in addition to copyright, financial services, and middle-market M&A legal services. The firm’s lawyers advise on brand protection and advertising; corporate and business transactions; employment law; environmental law; litigation; and real estate, technology, privacy, and security matters. 

Davis Wright Tremaine maintains a powerful entertainment division, boasting clients such as Spotify, Meta, Paramount, Apple, Netflix, and Comcast and is particularly well-known for its First Amendment litigation. The firm’s attorneys have represented author J. D. Salinger in a copyright suit, litigated against controversial filmmaker Michael Moore over First Amendment rights, and defended comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and Showtime in a defamation lawsuit brought by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Recently, the firm made headlines in its defense of HBO and Bill Maher in a libel lawsuit by Laura Loomer. Davis Wright Tremaine is among the top law firms in Vault’s Media, Entertainment, & Sports rankings, and its media and entertainment practice has been named Media & Entertainment Group of the Year by Law360 nine times.

That’s Innovation

With an eye toward innovation, Davis Wright Tremaine employs “legal solution architects” who work together with firm lawyers to address the business initiatives and challenges of its clients and the firm itself. The firm brings together creative problem-solving and project management strategies, such as Lean Six Sigma, within its culture of collaboration. For example, the firm has integrated AI into many of its legal workflows and developed groundbreaking in-house AI tools.

COVID-19 Update

COVID-19 has not affected our firm’s Summer Associate recruitment or program in any negative way.  In fact, we have expanded our firmwide summer class size and even participated in a few new fellowship programs. However, all interviews, orientations and trainings have been taking place virtually to ensure everyone’s health and safety. DWT has a strict vaccination policy and we will continue to monitor national and local health guidelines to offer a safe environment for everyone.

• The firm successfully defended Showtime in a $95 million libel complaint brought by former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore over his appearance on the Sacha Baron Cohen show Who is America?
• The firm represented Flynn Restaurant Group in its purchase of 937 Pizza Hut and 194 Wendy's locations throughout the country from NPC International—the largest franchisee-to-franchisee acquisition in U.S. history.
• The firm successfully enjoined a Trump Administration executive order that would have banned the use of TikTok in the United States.
• Following a five-year class action, in which the firm litigated pro bono on behalf of 8,000 children across the state of Oregon, DWT achieved a landmark settlement, requiring the government to dramatically improve its foster care system.

• Pro Bono Innovators, 2026—Bloomberg Law
• Named one of the legal industry’s Top 10 Social Impact Leaders, 2025—Law360
• Innovative Lawyers North America for Innovation in Digitising Legal Practice, 2024—Financial Times
• Law Firm Diversity Award, 2024—National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
• Best Law Firm–Client Team (w/Microsoft, 2024)—The American Lawyer