Firm Profiles

While Seyfarth Shaw has a broad scope of practice areas—from business law to environmental and tax matters—its bread and butter has always been employment and labor law. The Chicago–based firm, ranked sixty–second on the 2011 Am Law 100 with just over $450 million in revenue, handles virtually all aspects of workplace law from defending employers in discrimination, ERISA, and employee benefits litigation, to advising on executive compensation and pension funding. The firm has also created specialty teams to defend corporations against whistle–blower lawsuits and to guide clients on health care reform and compliance.

Founded in 1945, Seyfarth has some 700 lawyers (including 213 equity partners) spread out among ten offices within the United States and one in London. By many key measures it ranks far outside the industry’s leaders: At $735,000 the firm’s profits per partner placed 127th for 2010, and the firm is no chart–topper on diversity (123rd of 194 firms on The American Lawyer’s 2011 Diversity Scorecard, with less than 5 percent of the U.S. partnership consisting of minorities) or pro bono work (ranked 129th of 200 firms in the magazine’s 2011 survey).

But where Seyfarth has stood out is in its efforts to boost efficiency. It claims to be the only large law firm to build a client service model, which it calls SeyfarthLean based on Six Sigma, a business–process improvement methodology made famous by manufacturers like General Electric Company and Motorola Inc. The approach puts a heavy emphasis on data–driven decision making and process mapping, and Seyfarth says it has helped the firm get a better understanding of client needs and desired outcomes while improving staffing, efficiency, and collaboration, while reducing the overall cost of services by 15 to 50 percent.

—Updated as of 1/1/12