The story
Ballard Spahr originated in Philadelphia in 1885 and became known as 'Ballard and Spahr' in the early 1900s when University of Pennsylvania alumni Ellis Ames Ballard and Boyd Lee Spahr began practicing law together. The firm has continually grown by number of attorneys, practices, and offices throughout the United States since inception.
The firm opened its first office outside of Philadelphia in 1978, with the opening of its Washington, D.C. office. Ballard opened its Denver office in 1981, beginning the firm's growth in the Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions. The firm opened offices in Salt Lake City in 1987, Baltimore and New Jersey in 1992, and Delaware in 2002.
Ballard Spahr acquired Needle & Rosenberg, P.C., an intellectual property boutique firm in Atlanta in 2008, expanding the firm's IP services and expanding to the Southeast. The firm opened an office in New York City in 2013, joining with Stillman & Friedman, a white collar defense and securities litigation and enforcement boutique.
It has also acquired First Amendment litigation boutique Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz in 2017, bolstering Ballard's national media and entertainment law practice, as well as Lindquist & Vennum, a firm that focused on middle-market deal making.
On January 1, 2025, Ballard Spahr completed its merger with another law firm Lane Powell.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ballard Spahr, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4