Crowell & Moring

Crowell & Moring was founded in 1979 by 53 lawyers, most of whom were previously at Jones Day.

The firm has grown steadily since its founding, through acquisitions of practice groups, mergers, and an influx of lateral partners and internal promotions. In 2021, Crowell merged with the Chicago-based intellectual property firm Brinks Gilson & Lione and the New York-based financial services law firm Kibbe & Orbe. In July 2013, Crowell & Moring bolstered its Energy Group with the addition of a six-member team from Dickstein Shapiro. In October 2009, Crowell & Moring opened a San Francisco office by merging with a 28-lawyer litigation team from Folger Levin & Kahn. In August 2009, the firm brought on five partners from Patton Boggs to expand its Environment & Natural Resources Group's work in energy and climate change. In October 2008, Crowell & Moring opened an office in Los Angeles by merging with seven-lawyer white collar defense boutique Lightfoot Vandevelde Sadowsky Crouchley Rutherford & Levine LLP. In 2007, a 10-lawyer financial services group from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney joined Crowell & Moring's New York office. These moves were followed by an additional seven intellectual property lawyers in 2008. Crowell & Moring also hired three partners from Morgan & Finnegan, an IP law firm, to open in New York in 2006 and then merged with King Pagano Harrison, a health care and litigation boutique of some 20 attorneys.

Crowell & Moring was named to the National Law Journal's Pro Bono Hot List in 2021.

The firm represents Crosley Green, a man who spent 32 years in prison in Florida, including 19 on death row, after being convicted of the first-degree murder of Chip Flynn, a 22-year-old man in Titusville, Florida in 1990. In 2018, a federal court in Orlando granted Green's petition for habeas corpus. The court found that Green's constitutional rights were violated when Brevard County, Florida, prosecutors withheld key exculpatory evidence of Green's innocence in his trial. On March 14, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled against Green and reinstated his conviction. The Eleventh Circuit's decision is currently on appeal.

In David v. Signal, the firm worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center to lead litigation for the largest human trafficking case in U.S. history.

The firm secured clemency for pro bono clients in the President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, and President George W. Bush administrations. Crowell & Moring partnered with Families Against Mandatory Minimums and was also a participant in the Clemency Project 2014. In that year, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a plan to shorten the sentences of non-violent, low-level offenders who, if sentenced today for the same offense, would have received a substantially lower sentence. Clemency Project 2014 trained attorneys to identify eligible offenders and help them submit a persuasive, compelling clemency petition. To date, Crowell & Moring's efforts to secure clemency for pro bono clients have resulted in nine client sentence commutations.