Squire Patton Boggs history

The firm of Patton Boggs was founded in 1962 by James R. Patton, Jr. and joined soon after by George Blow and Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr.

It has "participated in the formation of every major multilateral trade agreement considered by Congress." Boggs joined the firm in 1966 after serving as an economist for the Joint Economic Committee and in the executive office of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Although it was a major firm in Yorkshire and the West Midlands region, it did not open a London office until 1991.

Invoking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Chevron also contended that Texaco had cleaned up a portion of its pollution and received a complete liability release from the government of Ecuador in 1998.

Texaco persuaded a federal judge to dismiss the case on procedural grounds in 2001, the same year the company was acquired by Chevron.

In 2003, though, the American attorneys restarted the litigation in Ecuador, now naming Chevron as the defendant.

The firm was ranked 20th in the UK by turnover in The Lawyer UK 100 2006, with a turnover of £132 million.

Hammonds converted to a Limited Liability Partnership in May 2008.

Donziger had turned the litigation into a media sensation, arranging for splashy coverage in Vanity Fair and on CBS’s 60 Minutes and CNN. He’d solicited and helped assemble financing for a supportive documentary film called Crude, which debuted to critical acclaim at Sundance in January 2009.

Hammonds and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey announced that they were in merger talks in August 2010.

In February 2011, that Ecuadorian judge delivered a 188-page opinion finding Chevron liable for harm to the environment and individuals and assessing damages of about $9 billion.

In 2012, a remarkable battle unfolded in United States District Court in Washington, D.C. Patton Boggs, the D.C. lobbying-and-law powerhouse co-founded by Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., faced off against Chevron, the sort of multinational corporation Patton Boggs normally represents.

One morning in June 2013, Patton Boggs partners woke up to find that the Washington Post had published a 5,600-word opus cataloguing the firm’s travails.

In March 2014, the judge issued a scathing 485-page ruling concluding that the plaintiffs’ lawyer had indeed violated the RICO statute.

In July 2016, the firm opened an office in Darwin, NT, Australia as part of its Asia-Pacific practice group.

The firm announced that effective 1 January 2017, Fred Nance would become Global Managing Partner of Squire Patton Boggs, United States LLP, managing 955 attorneys in 36 offices in 16 countries, including United States, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.