Davis Wright Tremaine LLP | Company Profile | Vault.com (2024)

Founded in 1908, Davis Wright Tremaine has worked with small clients as well as those ofFortune500 stature, with a focus on litigation, entertainment, environmental, intellectual property, and employment law. Today, the firm has more than 580 attorneys across eight domestic offices.

Winning the West Coast

More than eight decades after it kick-started to life in Seattle, Davis Wright Tremaine merged with another reputable Seattle firm and began its expansion in and beyond the Pacific Northwest. Through its Anchorage, Alaska office, Davis Wright Tremaine made headlines when it served as lead counsel in a 30,000-plaintiff lawsuit filed by seafood and fishing industry interests against Exxon Valdez for the massive oil spill off the coast of Alaska. Gradually, the firm forged a string of offices dotting the West Coast, becoming the first Seattle-based firm to open up shop in San Francisco in 1991, and snagging prominent West Coast names like Starbucks, Microsoft, and theSeattle Timesas clients.

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

That’s Entertaining

Davis Wright Tremaine has continued to grow in its core practice areas, as well as copyright, financial services, and middle-market M&A. The firm’s practice areas include brand protection and advertising, corporate and business transactions, employment law, environmental law, litigation, real estate, and technology + privacy and security.

DWT has a powerful entertainment division, boasting clients like 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, batted off litigation against controversial filmmaker Michael Moore by citing First Amendment rights, and defended comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and Showtime in a defamation lawsuit by Georgia’s former chief justice Roy Moore. Recently, the firm made headlines in its defense of BuzzFeed in the Steele Dossier case. DWT is among the top 3 law firms in Vault’s Media, Entertainment, & Sports ranking, and its practice has been named Media & Entertainment Group of the Year by Law360.

De Novo

With an eye toward innovation, DWT employs “legal solution architects” who work together with firm lawyers to address clients’ and the firm’s business initiatives and challenges. The firm brings together creative problem-solving strategies, collaboration strategies like Lean Six Sigma, and project management. Projects have included creating an automated legal document system and a heat map of protected intellectual property.

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.

NOTABLE CASES

• 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 use of TikTok in the U.S.

AWARDS & ACCOLADES

• Law Firm Diversity Champion Award, 2022—Citi
• Named one of the country’s Top 5 “Ceiling Smashers” for high percentage of women equity partners, 2023—Law360 Glass Ceiling Report
• Law Firm of the Year in Advertising Law and Media Law, 2023—Best Lawyers and U.S. News
• Pro Bono Publico Award, 2023—American Bar Association

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

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