Arthur D. Little

The roots of the company were started in 1886 by Arthur Dehon Little, an MIT chemist, and co-worker Roger B. Griffin (Russell B. Griffin), another chemist and a graduate of the University of Vermont who had met when they both worked for Richmond Paper Company. Their new company, Little & Griffin, was located in Boston where MIT was then located. Griffin and Little prepared a manuscript for The Chemistry of Paper-making which was for many years an authoritative text in the area. The book had not been entirely finished when Griffin was killed in a laboratory accident in 1893.

Little, who had studied Chemistry at MIT, collaborated with MIT and William Hultz Walker of the MIT Chemistry department, forming a partnership, Little & Walker, which lasted from 1900 to 1905, while both MIT and Little's company were still located in Boston. The partnership dissolved in 1905 when Walker dedicated all of his time to being in charge of the new Research Laboratory of Applied Chemistry at MIT.

Little continued on his own and incorporated the company, Arthur D. Little (ADL), in 1909. He conducted analytical studies, the precursor of the consulting studies for which the firm would later become famous. He also taught papermaking at MIT from 1893 to 1916.

In 1917, the company, originally based at 103 Milk Street in Boston, moved to its own building, the Arthur D. Little Inc., Building, at 30 Memorial Drive on the Charles River next to the new campus of MIT, which had also relocated from Boston to Cambridge. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

In November 1953, ADL opened a 40-acre site for its Acorn Park labs in west Cambridge, Massachusetts, about 6 miles (10 km) from MIT. The new site took its name from the company motto - "Glandes Sparge Ut Quercus Crescant," translated as "Scatter Acorns That Oaks May Grow." The Memorial Drive Trust, a tax-exempt retirement trust for the benefit of its employees, was set up.

Arthur D. Little filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002. At an auction in 2002, TIAX LLC, formed by Kenan Sahin, acquired the assets, contracts, and staff of Arthur D. Little's U.S. Technology & Innovation business. Paris-based Altran Technologies bought the non-U.S. assets and brand name of Arthur D. Little.

A group of partners led a management buyout from the Altran group in 2011. It was completed on 30 December 2011 with the majority of ADL directors becoming partners and shareholders. A small number of senior principals, as well as the CFO and COO, also became shareholders. The company was reestablished in the US in 2016. It has appeared on the Forbes list of "America's Best Management Consulting Firms" every year since then.

Controversy

Bhopal disaster

In 1987, ADL claimed that sabotage was likely the cause of the Bhopal disaster, which resulted in the death of thousands. ADL's investigation was funded by Union Carbide, the company that owned the chemical plant responsible for the chemical disaster.

Phillip Morris-funded study on the economic impact of smoking in Czech Republic

In 2001, a Philip Morris-funded ADL study concluded that smoking can help the Czech economy Phillip Morris issued an apology following the report's publication.