Reed Smith LLP

Founded in Pittsburgh nearly 150 years ago, Reed Smith LLP joined the crowd in globalizing its practice via national and international mergers in the 21st century. With litigation at the forefront, the firm’s practice strengths include cross-border transactional and regulatory work.

Steel City Origins

Reed Smith’s rise to prominence can be at least partly credited to a symbiotic relationship with an American industrial tycoon. Attorney James Reed, who founded the firm with Philander Knox in 1877, cultivated strong relationships with the one man most responsible for giving the Steel City its blue-collar identity: Andrew Carnegie. In addition to leading the firm’s representation of Carnegie at the peak of his empire building, Reed served as a charter director of Carnegie’s U.S. Steel. Other industry titans followed Carnegie’s lead in enlisting the burgeoning outfit, and names such as Mellon, Heinz, and Frick soon graced the firm’s client roster.

Edwin W. Smith and other partners joined the firm in the 1880s, and in 1922, the firm adopted the name Reed Smith Shaw & McClay. In recent years, a series of strategic mergers has resulted in the firm known today as Reed Smith, which currently employs more than 1,600 attorneys worldwide.

Making Its Mark

Known for its litigation prowess, Reed Smith is a full-service shop, advising corporate and commercial clients on litigation, transactional, regulatory, and other matters. It also fields multidisciplinary groups dedicated to clients in the life science, healthcare, media and entertainment, energy and natural resource, transportation, and financial service sectors. The firm represents more than one-half of the world’s 100 largest companies, including top oil and gas companies, auto manufacturers, commercial and savings banks, and pharmaceutical distributors.

Through Reed Smith’s leading insurance recovery practice, attorneys act on behalf of policyholders experiencing catastrophic property losses and product claims and those facing securities litigation and cyber losses. The firm also reviews clients’ insurance policies to help them negotiate data privacy and security liability insurance policies.

The firm has a standout labor and employment practice that handles issues from discrimination, executive compensation, labor law, and pensions to unfair competition. The firm also works together with clients to develop global HR strategies and to execute global investigations.

Reed Smith’s life sciences and health care practices are also highly regarded. Firm attorneys are experienced in handling litigation, regulatory, and transactional matters for health insurance, pharmaceutical, medical device, biotechnology, diagnostic, and other areas.

Reed Smith lawyers also work in the entertainment and media space, advising clients in the advertising and marketing, film and television, music, sports, technology, telecom, internet, social media, video gaming, and interactivity industries.

The firm’s international arbitration capabilities have grown over the past several years and now form a cornerstone of Reed Smith’s overall disputes expertise.

School’s (Not) Out

Reed Smith is committed to preparing its people for success. The firm has been providing formal training for career development since 2004. In 2022, the firm restructured, expanded, and rebranded its global competency-based career development program. The new program focuses on core competencies in legal and business skills, client interactions, and citizenship. New offerings include Reed Smith Associate Advantage, a program designed for lawyers in their first three years of practice, and Reed Smith Campus, a global learning management system.

• In a 2025 opinion, SCOTUS reversed the conviction and death sentence of Oklahoma state inmate Richard Glossip, agreeing with Reed Smith’s independent investigation that he did not receive a fair trial and deserves a new one. Mr. Glossip had been on death row for 27 years.
• We successfully represented PleasrDAO, a group of digital artists that purchased the Wu-Tang Clan’s physical album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin in 2021 and the copyrights in 2024, in New York federal court against “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli. Despite a court order to relinquish all rights to the album, millions in fines against him, and nearly a year in prison, Shkreli had bragged on social media that he illegally kept copies of the data and files with the music.
• We have represented Concord, the leader in the development, management, and acquisition of sound recordings, music publishing, and theatrical performance rights, in various transactions. A recent deal was Concord’s purchase of the music catalogues of Tony Banks, Phil Collins, and Mike Rutherford, covering the entirety of each artist’s work as a recording artist and songwriter with respect to Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics, and each of their respective solo works.

• Best Professional Development Initiative, American Lawyer Industry Awards, 2024—Law.com
• Top 20 ranking in Law Firm Tech Index, 2022, 2023, and 2024—Financial Times
• 134 ranked lawyers and 66 ranked practices, including 34 Band 1 rankings, 2024—Chambers USA
• 47 attorneys named to the Stand-Out Lawyers list, 2025—Thomson Reuters
• Top 10 ranking in UK A-List, 2024—Law.com International