Sidley Austin

Sidley Austin

Sidley Austin LLP, formerly known as Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, is the sixth-largest U.S.-based corporate law firm with approximately 1700 lawyers, annual revenues of more than one billion dollars, and offices in 18 cities worldwide, with the most recent addition of Houston, Texas in February 2012. It is a full-service law firm, with broad experience in transaction and litigation matters. Its original predecessor firm was founded in 1866 and had former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, then the widow of President Abraham Lincoln, among its earliest clients. The firm was formed as the result of the merger of two firms: the Chicago-based Sidley & Austin, founded in 1866, and the New York-based Brown & Wood, founded in 1914. The merger was completed in May 2001. The firm's headquarters is at One South Dearborn in the Chicago Loop, Chicago.

In each year since the survey's inception, Sidley has received more First-Tier National Rankings than any other U.S. law firm in the Best Law Firms Survey by U.S. News & World Report. The 2011 US News Survey also named Sidley as the "Law Firm of the Year" in Corporate Law and Securities Regulation. As of 2011, it was the 12th largest law firm in the world (and 8th in the US) by revenue.