| Baker & McKenzie | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Chicago |
| No. of offices | 77 |
| No. of attorneys | > 4,200 |
| No. of employees | > 11,000 |
| Major practice areas | Corporate law |
| Key people | Eduardo C. Leite (Chairman of the Executive Committee) |
| Revenue | US $2.54 billion (2014) |
| Company type | Swiss Verein |
| Website | |
Baker & McKenzie is a multinational law firm founded in Chicago in 1949 and is a member of the Global Elite of international law firms. It is ranked as the world's top law firm in terms of revenue, markets, and international lawyer count.
In the fiscal year ending 2014, Baker & McKenzie earned US$2.54 billion in revenue. As of 2015, Baker & McKenzie employs over 11,500 people including 4,200 lawyers in 77 offices, which are located in 47 countries.
In the fiscal year ending 2014, Baker & McKenzie earned US$2.54 billion in revenue. As of 2015, Baker & McKenzie employs over 11,500 people including 4,200 lawyers in 77 offices, which are located in 47 countries.
Its current chairman is Eduardo C. Leite, former managing partner of its four Brazil offices. Mr. Leite has been invited to serve as a Co-Chair of the 2015 World Economic Forum on Latin America, Riviera Maya, Mexico from May 6 to May 8.
In a significant number of the markets where Baker & McKenzie is present it is ranked as one of the top five law firms in the country. In 2014, Baker & McKenzie opened offices in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Brisbane, Australia; and Yangon, Myanmar as well as a second Global Services Center in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Co-founding partner Russell Baker, born in Wisconsin and raised in New Mexico, opened his early practice Baker & Simpson in Chicago in 1925 upon his graduation from the University of Chicago School of Law. Baker had early exposure to the Spanish language and other cultures, and his firm provided legal services to Chicago's growing Mexican American community. The firm later advised U.S. companies investing in Latin America.
In 1949, the firm relaunched with John McKenzie, a litigator who had graduated from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. McKenzie took charge of the litigation practice, and Baker built an international practice. Through the 1950s, the firm's client roster expanded.
International Law Firm
Baker & McKenzie became an international firm beginning in 1955, when a lawyer in Venezuela contacted Baker & McKenzie about opening a joint venture office in Caracas. Russell Baker's son Donald moved to Caracas to launch the satellite office. Within the next three years, offices were opened in Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich,New York and São Paulo. Rather than practicing U.S. law abroad, Baker & McKenzie trained local lawyers, often bringing them to the Chicago base for an initial period or temporarily relocating U.S. attorneys to the foreign office to oversee the establishment of the practice. By 1978 Baker & McKenzie had 26 offices in 20 countries.
In 1986, the firm established offices in Northwestern Mexico to facilitate legal transactions connected to industrial development in that region. In 1989, Baker & McKenzie was one of the first firms to open offices in the former Soviet Union after the Iron Curtain fell. In California, the firm merged with MacDonald, Halsted, and Laybourne to start offices in Los Angeles and San Diego. By 1990 the firm operated 49 offices on six continents, employing around 1500 attorneys generating $400 million in revenues.
In 1999 Christine Lagarde, the Paris managing partner and an antitrust and labor lawyer, was elected Chairman of the Global Executive Committee, the first woman to lead Baker & McKenzie; she was chairperson for five years. In 2004, Forbes listed Lagarde as No. 76 in its list of “Most Powerful Women in the World." She then served as France’s Minister of Finance. In June 2011, she was elected as the first woman to become Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.
In 2001 the firm employed 3000 attorneys and had $1 billion in revenues. A structure largely unique to large multinational law firms, the Swiss Verein, was pioneered by Baker & McKenzie in 2004, in which multiple national or regional partnerships form an association in which they share branding, administrative functions and various operating costs, but maintain separate revenue pools and often separate partner compensation structures. . In 2005, the firm received a large boost when some 70 partners and other legal staff from the New York office of the disbanding international firm Coudert Brothers joined Baker & McKenzie.
In October 2006, Unilever chose the firm to manage its global trademark portfolio, the largest in the world with over 160,000 registrations. It was the first time a multinational company outsourced its trademark management to a law firm on such a large scale. In September 2007, BTI Consulting rated Baker & McKenzie as one of the world's top 10 transaction law firms in its recent survey on corporate transactions, which was reported by National Law Journal. In July 2013, co-founding partner Russell Baker was named one of American Lawyer’s top 50 innovators for pioneering ideas and initiatives that changed the world of big law.
Since 2009, Baker & McKenzie has opened offices in locations including Abu Dhabi, Luxembourg, Turkey, Johannesburg, South Africa,Morocco, Peru, South Korea,and Dubai.
Law Firm Baker & McKenzie Awards and rankings
- Received top rankings from Chambers Global 2014.
- Baker & McKenzie Named Tax Law Firm of the Year in 2014.
- Named Chambers Global Law Firm of the Year for IP in 2014.
- Cited as the largest and most global antitrust/competition team in the world by The Global Competition Review's GCR 100 14th edition.
- Recognized as one of UK's Most LGB-Friendly Employers in 2014.
- Ranked as one of UK's top 25 employers in 2014.
- Recipient of the Prestigious Achievement Award in 2014.
- Highest-ranked U.S. law firm by Japanese corporate legal departments in the December 2013 Nihon Keizai Shimbun survey.
- Named one of the top 25 corporate law firms in America by the Corporate Board Member magazine.
- Named "Top Law Firm for Diversity" by MultiCultural Law Magazine for the 8th consecutive year
- Named Best International Firm for Women in Business Law by Euromoney Asia in 2013
- Named as Euromoney's Best Firm for Minority Women Lawyers in Australia in 2013
- Named as Leading Light Law Firm for Pro Bono in Latin America in 2013
Baker & McKenzie represented five leading luxury goods and fashion brands in 2005 in an action against the landlord of the infamous Silk Market Shopping mall where counterfeit goods were sold. The Intermediate and Higher People’s Courts both confirmed that the landlord was jointly and severally liable for failing to stop infringements by vendors after being notified of them, making this the first time a landlord is held responsible for the illegal activities of their tenants in the judicial history of China.This case was also recognized as a “Top Ten” case by the Beijing Higher People’s Court.
In 2006, Baker & McKenzie wrote the amicus brief of the Council of Parent Attorneys & Advocates (COPAA) in support of the petition for a writ of certiorari in Winkelman v. Parma City School District, and later, COPAA's amicus brief on the merits. It argued that parents have the right to represent themselves in court to enforce their IDEA rights and protect their children's access to a free appropriate public education. This led to a unanimous Supreme Court decision in June 2007 granting parents the right to proceed without counsel on behalf of children with disabilities.
In December 2009, Baker & McKenzie won a landmark tax case against the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for Symantec Corporation. The IRS had claimed that the VERITAS Software Corporation, which Symantec had subsequently acquired in 2005, owed over $1 billion in back taxes, penalties and interest as a result of VERITAS non-U.S. operations. Symantec took the case to the U.S. Tax Court where Baker & McKenzie argued that the IRS position was arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable. In an opinion by Judge Maurice Foley, the U.S. Tax Court decided in favor of Symantec.
Baker & McKenzie is representing Microsoft in Microsoft Corporation v. Internal Revenue Service
Offices of Baker & McKenzie Law Firm
Baker & McKenzie is organized as a Swiss Verein which allows regional profit pools and their related tax, accounting and partner compensation systems to remain separate while allowing strategy, branding, information technology and other core functions to be shared between the constituent partnerships.
North America
- Chicago - The Chicago office also houses Baker & McKenzie Global Services LLC, which coordinates Baker & McKenzie operations worldwide.
- Dallas
- Houston
- Miami
- New York (W. R. Grace Building)
- Palo Alto
- San Francisco (Embarcadero Center)
- Toronto (Brookfield Place)
- Washington, D.C.
Latin America
- Buenos Aires
- Brasília (Associated Firm)
- Porto Alegre (Associated Firm)
- Rio de Janeiro (Associated Firm)
- Sao Paulo (Associated Firm)
- Santiago
- Bogotá
- Guadalajara
- Juarez
- Mexico City
- Monterrey
- Tijuana
- Lima
- Caracas
- Valencia
Europe
Amsterdam
- Antwerp
- Barcelona
- Berlin
- Brussels
- Budapest
- Düsseldorf
- Frankfurt
- Geneva
- Istanbul
- Kyiv
- London
- Luxembourg
- Madrid
- Milan
- Moscow
- Munich
- Paris
- Prague
- Rome
- St. Petersburg
- Stockholm
- Vienna
- Warsaw
- Zurich
Middle East & Africa
- Abu Dhabi
- Almaty
- Bahrain
- Baku
- Cairo - Operated as Helmy, Hamza and Partners, run by Taher Helmy
- Casablanca
- Doha
- Dubai
- Jeddah
- Johannesburg
Asia/Pacific
- Bangkok
- Brisbane
- Beijing
- Hanoi
- Ho Chi Minh City
- Hong Kong
- Jakarta
- Kuala Lumpur - operated by member firm Wong & Partners
- Manila
- Melbourne
- Seoul
- Shanghai
- Singapore
- Sydney
- Taipei
- Tokyo - operated as a joint venture named Baker & McKenzie (Gaikokuho Joint Enterprise)
- Yangon
Firm Baker & McKenzie History
The history of Baker & McKenzie is a story of imagination, determination and hard work. For more than 60 years, thousands of men and women have joined in the great adventure of creating and nurturing our unique global organization.
| 1901 | Russell Baker is born into a farm family in Portage, Wisconsin in the US. At age 12 his family moves to Texas and in 1917 to New Mexico, where young Russell learns Spanish and develops a budding passion for diverse cultures. |
| 1920 | Unable to afford the fare, Baker rides for days in cold cattle cars to enroll at the University of Chicago. He works as a boxer at county fairs to pay his tuition. He also meets his wife, Elizabeth, a daughter of missionaries who grew up in Mexico. |
| 1925 | With a law school friend, Baker opens Baker & Simpson, the first of what will be several law firms bearing his name. He focuses on helping Mexican nationals and builds a practice specializing in immigration, bankruptcy, criminal and tort law. |
| 1928 | Baker brings Corrine Rice, an appellate lawyer, into the firm — an early indicator of his lifelong interest in diversity. Four years later, Rice becomes a name partner in Baker’s new firm, and her name stays on the door until 1949, five years after her death. |
| 1933 | Abbott Laboratories, a leading pharmaceutical company based in Chicago, begins a push to expand internationally. Baker will soon add it to his fledgling corporate practice, where it remains a major client to this day. It is the start of the world’s first truly global corporate practice. |
| 1942 | The US tax code is amended to encourage investment in Latin America. Baker sees an opportunity to use newly created Western Hemisphere Trade Corporation provisions and, subsequently, foreign-base companies, to help companies reduce their tax liabilities. It was the start of what would become one of the world’s largest tax planning practices. |
| 1948 | Baker and John McKenzie meet by chance while sharing a cab home. Baker describes his vision of creating an international law firm, and within a year they join forces to establish the firm of Baker’s dreams. McKenzie took charge of Russell’s flourishing litigation practice, one of the leading practices in the City of Chicago, permitting Baker to dedicate his time to the development of the international practice. |
| 1949 | Baker & McKenzie is formed. It has four lawyers and a secretary, and fees total US$75,000. Just over 50 years later, Baker & McKenzie will have more than 3,000 lawyers worldwide and revenues of more than US$1 billion. |
| 1955 | Russell Baker returns to the University of Chicago to complete his law degree. He had not received enough credits in his earlier studies for a J.D. before taking the bar examination for economic reasons. (At the time, a degree was not required for bar admittance.) He receives his J.D. with the much younger Law School Class of ‘55. |
| Baker & McKenzie begins its first operation outside the US — in Venezuela. Baker’s son Donald moves to Caracas to work with Ramon Diaz, who two years later will become the first non-US partner in the emerging Firm. | |
| 1957 | Six European nations sign the Treaty of Rome, and the Firm opens an office in Brussels, capital city of the European Community. It is part of a rapid growth period for the Firm that will see the opening of 17 new offices, including eight in Europe, in a decade. |
| 1958 | Zurich becomes the Firm’s sixth location. Generous tax treaties help its roster of corporate clients grow six-fold over the next seven years, even as a furor erupts in the US over Baker & McKenzie’s tax advice. |
| 1960 | Over the objections of the IRS and US Treasury, the courts uphold Baker & McKenzie’s strategies for using Western Hemisphere Trade Corporations and foreign-base companies provisions to help companies reduce tax liabilities. Two years later, Congress steps in to block the use of tax foreign-base companies, but increasingly complex tax laws create more work. |
| 1961 | Faced with limited prospects for advancement due to an English law prohibiting more than 20 partners to a firm, Terence Lane joins Baker & McKenzie to open the Firm’s ninth location worldwide. London eventually will become the Firm’s largest. |
| 1962 | A leading international trademark lawyer is recruited to the Firm. Horst Werder helps begin an Intellectual Property practice, a natural addition to services being offered to US companies beginning to do more business abroad. Early clients include Estée Lauder Cosmetics, whom the Firm still represents today. |
| 1962 | John McKenzie dies suddenly of a heart attack at 49. By now, the Firm has 85 lawyers in 13 locations worldwide. Total fees are US$2.5 million. |
| 1963 | The Firm expands to the Asia-Pacific region with the start of operations in Manila and Sydney the following year. Today, the Asia-Pacific practice is widely considered among the best in the rapidly developing region. |
| 1964 | The Firm celebrates its 15th anniversary at the 1964 Annual Meeting in Chicago. Forty-nine partners attend. Total cost US$30,000. Two years later, the first Annual Meeting outside the US will be held in London. |
| 1970 | The Firm wants to begin operations in San Francisco, but Bar rules require firms to use the names of lawyers who have passed the state bar or who are dead. After taking a review course and a couple of tries, Baker passes the California bar exam and the office opens. He sets the record as the oldest candidate to pass the examination, which was reputed to be the most difficult one in the union. |
| 1972 | A four-year associate, Eugene Theroux, accompanies a US congressional delegation to China and begins to travel there regularly for clients. Nine years later, as a partner, he will give lectures on commercial law for Chinese business people (many of whom will go on to hold important positions in government and business) under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Trade. |
| 1974 | The Firm opens an office in Hong Kong only to learn that people believe a ghost inhabits the building. An eight-foot-tall statue imported from New Guinea is posted outside the door, and the ghost disappears. The office thrives, becoming one of the largest in the Firm. |
| 1978 | Baker & McKenzie ranks top among the law firms in the first annual rankings by the US-based National Law Journal. It will continue to hold that position for more than 25 years. Wulf Döser is elected chairman. He becomes the first non-US partner to lead the Firm. |
| 1979 | Russell Baker dies on September 28, the same month and day as his founding partner John McKenzie had died 17 years earlier. Baker & McKenzie’s attorney roster reaches 500. Baker’s death also coincided with the date of the Firm’s annual meeting in Paris, the only one he did not preside over prior to his death. |
| 1980 | An associated office* in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is opened. Long accustomed to working with both civil law and common law issues, the Firm now adds to its capabilities an understanding of the sharia, the basic body of Islamic law that underpins many legal systems in the Middle East. |
| 1981 | The Firm hires its first director of professional development, beginning a focused effort to improve practice skills and the consistency of legal services across a far-flung global network. |
| 1987 | Baker & McKenzie’s attorney roster reaches 1,000 — making it the first law firm in the world to reach this size. |
| 1988 | After more than a decade of system development at the local and regional level, the Firm introduces its first global communications network. Today, Baker & McKenzie’s technology infrastructure is recognized as a leader among law firms worldwide. |
| 1989 | Baker & McKenzie becomes one of the first international law firms in Moscow. Later the government would retain the Firm to handle the largest privatization in Soviet history, Volga Automobile Associated Works, which produced 60 percent of the cars in the Soviet Union. |
| 1997 | The Firm is the first global law firm to adopt a quality audit program. It provides for the formal inspection of each office’s operations and quality assurance procedures on a triennial basis. Baker & McKenzie’s 2,000th lawyer joins the Firm, in Kyiv. |
| 1998 | Baker & McKenzie introduces a formal Client Service Program, creating dedicated teams to ensure seamless, high-quality work for major clients. |
| 1999 | The Firm celebrates its 50th anniversary. Christine Lagarde, a French national who specialized in antitrust and labor law, becomes the first woman elected chairman of the executive committee. |
| 2001 | The Firm’s roster of lawyers reaches 3,000. For the first time, global revenues exceed US$1 billion. |
| 2003 | Baker & McKenzie implements centralization of global information technology through shared service centers in North America and Asia to provide high-quality service. The Firm received the Best Global Use of IT award for its global IT achievements. |
| 2004 | John Conroy is elected Chairman of the Executive Committee. Through his vision and leadership the Firm adopts a global strategy which will result in an unprecedented growth in profitability over the next few years. |
| Twelve former partners of Mancera Ernst & Young join Baker & McKenzie’s regional and global tax practices in Mexico including 65 additional tax advisers. | |
| 2005 | Approximately 70 partners and other legal staff from Coudert Brothers join the Firm in New York, more than doubling the size of the existing office. For the first time, the Firm is listed as one of New York’s largest law firms in the New York Law Journal’s annual NYLJ 100. |
| 2007 | The Firm breaks US$1 million mark in profits per partner, and its Talent Management Strategy is named a “best practice” by two Harvard Business School case studies. |
| 2008 | Baker & McKenzie becomes the first law firm to receive the Corporate Social Responsibility Award from the Foreign Policy Association. |
| Global revenues exceed US$2 billion, marking four consecutive years of double-digit growth and an 85% increase in profits per partner. | |
| 2009 | Baker & McKenzie opens in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. |
| 2010 | Baker & McKenzie opens in Luxembourg. |
| Eduardo Leite is elected Chairman of the Executive Committee, the Firm's first Chairman from the Latin America region. | |
| 2011 | Baker & McKenzie opens in Doha, Qatar. |
| Baker & McKenzie opens in Istanbul, Turkey | |
| 2012 | Baker & McKenzie opens in Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Baker & McKenzie opens in Casablanca, Morocco | |
| Baker & McKenzie opens in Lima, Peru | |
| 2013 | Baker & McKenzie opens in Seoul, Korea |
| Baker & McKenzie opens in Dubai, United Arab Emirates | |
| Russell Baker is named one of American Lawyer’s top 50 innovators for pioneering ideas and initiatives that changed the world of big law. | |
| 2014 | Baker & McKenzie opens in Yangon, Myanmar |
| Baker & McKenzie opens in Brisbane, Australia | |
| An associated office* in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is opened. |
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