The story
Founded by Robert S. Strauss in 1945.1
The firm was founded in Dallas, Texas, in 1945 by Robert Strauss and Richard Gump. It maintains a large presence in Texas with five offices in the state.
In early September 1950, Strauss and Gump added Irving Goldberg and William P. Fonville to the firm, which was then renamed Goldberg, Fonville, Gump & Strauss.
In 1963, Jack Hauer left a competitor to join the firm, which became known as Goldberg, Fonville, Gump, Strauss & Hauer.
Goldberg left the firm in 1966 to accept a federal judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was replaced by Henry Akin. Fonville's departure—and the ascent to named partner status of Alan Feld, who had joined the firm in 1960—gave the firm the name it currently bears.
In 2012, the firm's partnership elected Kim Koopersmith to serve as its chairperson, joining the few women up to that time to head an Am Law 50 law firm. She succeeded R. Bruce McLean, who had helmed the firm for 20 years and is the first woman to chair the firm.
In 2013, Akin adopted a "single tier" partnership structure, in which all partners have equity, abandoning the more popular "two tier" structure in which many partners have no equity interest.
In 2017, Akin hired its first chief diversity and inclusion officer, Michele Meyer-Shipp, who joined the firm from Prudential Financial. She was succeeded by Nimesh Patel, who joined the firm in February 2019.
According to OpenSecrets, Akin was one of the top law firms contributing to federal candidates during the 2012 election cycle, donating $2.56 million, 66% to Democrats. By comparison, during that same period Kirkland & Ellis donated $2.49 million, 59% to Republicans, while oil conglomerate ExxonMobil donated $2.66 million, 88% to Republicans. Since 1990, Akin has contributed $19.84 million to federal candidates, and since 2003 has spent $8 million on lobbying.
Read the full text
The firm's clients includes the governments of Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, the Maldives, and Nicaragua.
The firm has offices in Dallas, Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Houston, Irvine, Fort Worth, New York, Moscow, Philadelphia, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Frankfurt, Geneva and Hartford. In December 2023, Akin announced the decision to begin winding down operations in Beijing in 2024.
In November 2023, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld was among a group of major law firms who sent a letter to the deans of several top U.S. law schools following an alleged rise of antisemitism on campuses following the start of the Gaza war. The letter said "We look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses."
Involvement in Russia investigation
During the 2017 Special Counsel investigation regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, Melissa Laurenza, a partner of the firm, was called to testify in Paul Manafort's trial. Laurenza had previously been Manafort's lawyer, and had reportedly helped him submit forms in which he registered as a foreign agent. In October 2017, the United States Office of Special Counsel compelled Laurenza to testify in the case; "New York University law professor Stephen Gillers said the judge was persuaded that there was significant evidence Manafort and [Rick Gates] had duped their lawyer into sending inaccurate letters to Justice about their lobbying efforts and about what emails might exist about the work."
Involvement in U.S. presidential impeachment inquiry
In 2019, lawyers from the firm represented Catherine Croft, a U.S. State Department specialist on Ukraine in her testimony before the Select Committee on Intelligence in the U.S. House of Representatives.
From Wikipedia’s article on Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3