Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

With roots in Chicago, Katten has grown to nearly 700 attorneys across more than a dozen offices around the globe. The firm is known for its Corporate, Finance, Healthcare, and Litigation practices.

First Chicago, Then the World

Frustrated with stodgy conventional methods of BigLaw management, 24 attorneys struck out on their own in 1974 to form Katten Muchin Zavis in the Windy City. With an emphasis on supporting an entrepreneurial and innovative culture, which remains evident today, Katten spent 15 years building its reputation in Chicago before branching out in 1989 to Los Angeles; Washington, DC; and New York. After its merger with the venerable Manhattan firm Rosenman & Colin in 2002, the firm continued to expand, adding eight offices nationwide and two offices overseas, in London and Shanghai. Nevertheless, Katten has thus far resisted the BigLaw trend of continuous exponential growth. 

A Little Bit of Everything

Katten attorneys focus on practices from antitrust, healthcare, and insolvency to restructuring and tax. The firm’s core areas of expertise include corporate, financial services, litigation, real estate, private credit, intellectual property, and private wealth matters. Katten serves the elite—including one-third of Fortune 100 companies—as well as small entrepreneurs, government entities, nonprofit organizations, and individuals.

The firm’s Healthcare practice spans disciplines, and its attorneys handle matters that range from antitrust, compliance, and financings to fraud and tax issues. The variety of clients it serves includes academic medical centers, hospices and nursing homes, hospitals, insurers, life science companies, physicians groups, and private equity funds.

The firm’s Financial Services team includes former professionals from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Department of Justice, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm counsels financial markets clients on compliance, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, product structuring, regulatory, and tax matters.

Pro Bono Pros

Katten boasts a robust Pro Bono practice and prides itself on being one of the first large law firms to employ an attorney as Director of Pro Bono Services to run the program on a full-time basis. The firm works with dozens of organizations across the country on pro bono matters involving immigration, domestic violence, civil rights, and other issues. Katten also hosts an annual Pro Bono Service Award event where it recognizes partners and associates for excellence in pro bono service with a $1,000 honorarium to a charity of each recipient’s choice. The firm also serves clients at one of the first school-based legal aid clinics in the nation, the Katten Legal Clinic, which is housed within a Chicago Public Schools building and managed in partnership with Legal Aid Chicago. Katten is an active member of the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance and an Inaugural Founding Champion of the Institute for Well-Being in Law.

• Katten advised ErisX in its acquisition by Cboe Global Markets, a watershed merger enabling Cboe to move into digital assets and derivatives markets.
• Katten represented Spring Creek Towers (formerly Starrett City) in a historic $905 million sale of the largest federally subsidized housing development in the country.
• Katten obtained a landmark ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of The Hurt Locker filmmakers and distributors when the court recognized the movie’s content is speech protected by the First Amendment.
• Katten won a victory for PepsiCo’s Gatorade in a landmark federal trademark case named one of the top ten IP decisions of 2019 by Law360.

• Best Law Firms for Women & Diversity, 2024—Seramount
• Equality 100 Award: Leader in LGBTQ+ Workplace Inclusion, 2023—Human Rights Campaign Foundation
• Top Performer and Compass Awards, 2023—Leadership Council on Legal Diversity
• Change Agent Award, 2023—Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms
• Mansfield Rule Certified Plus, 2023—Diversity Lab