Seyfarth

Seyfarth Shaw is home to more than 900 lawyers across 17 offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and China. Although it is highly regarded for its labor and employment practice, this full-service firm advises clients on a broad range of legal issues including litigation, tax, immigration, corporate, real estate, and employee benefits. The firm operates with a distinctive client service model called SeyfarthLean incorporating the Lean Six Sigma method into its practice.

Chi-town Trio

Seyfarth Shaw’s labor and employment roots run deep. The firm was founded in Chicago in 1945 by Henry E. Seyfarth, Lee C. Shaw, and Owen Fairweather as a labor and employment firm. Its attorneys helped draft the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and built strong practices in labor arbitration and pension and Title VII matters. The firm began expanding across the United States in the 1970s, opening offices in DC, Los Angeles, and New York. Today, the firm has 12 domestic and five international offices—including the firm’s Seattle office, added July 2020.

Employment Plus

Seyfarth’s practice spans many legal areas including workouts and bankruptcy, commercial and securities litigation, construction, corporate, employee benefits, environmental law, government contracts, intellectual property, real estate, trade secrets, trusts and estates, and—its specialty—labor and employment. Its clients range from Fortune 100 to midsize companies and startups and include publicly-traded and privately-held companies, as well as various types of funds. Seyfarth clients represent a variety of industries including financial institutions, newspapers and other media, technology, hotels, healthcare organizations, and airlines.

Seyfarth has one of the largest U.S. labor and employment practices in a full-service firm. With more than 400 attorneys in this practice alone, the firm counsels clients on employment discrimination, international employment law, OSHA/MSHA issues, wage and hour litigation, ERISA, California Labor Code litigation, and other topics. The firm is skilled in handling labor matters and regularly appears before the NLRB, SCOTUS, the National Mediation Board, state labor boards, and labor arbitrators. The firm consistently ranks among the top five in Vault’s Labor & Employment ranking.

Customized Career Paths

As is fitting for a firm that isn’t afraid to innovate, Seyfarth’s promotion and development structure has moved away from the traditional lockstep model. Associates are compensated and promoted based on their individual merits and at varying rates—which may be either faster or slower than is typical in a class year model, depending on the circumstances. The firm’s professional services group offers alternatives for attorneys by tailoring arrangements according to each attorney’s legal skill level, desired time commitment, and overall aspirations and contributions.

• National Tier 1 Best Law Firm, 2023 – U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Law Firms, 2023”

• Top Tier Firm, 2024 – The Legal 500 United States

• Best Law Firms for Women and Diversity, 2024 – Seramount

• 210 Seyfarth attorneys as leaders in their fields, 2024 – Best Lawyers in America

• Seyfarth received a score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index