The story
1800s–1999
McGuireWoods traces its origins to two lawyers, Egbert R. Watson and Murray Mason McGuire. In 1834, Watson opened a law office in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1870, he formed a partnership with his son-in-law, George Perkins, that would become Perkins, Battle & Minor.
In 1897, McGuire started practicing law in Richmond, Virginia. He was joined by John Stewart Bryan in 1898 and the two formed McGuire & Bryan. In the 1960s, the firm became McGuire, Woods, King, Davis & Patterson.
In 1966, Charlottesville's Battle, Neal, Harris, Minor & Williams merged with Richmond's McGuire, Woods, King, Davis & Patterson to create McGuire, Woods & Battle.
In 1987, the firm merged with Boothe, Prichard & Dudley, a 75-lawyer firm located in Tysons, Virginia, to create McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe. The newly-merged firm became the 33rd largest in the United States at the time. In 1991, McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe merged with Cable, McDaniel, Bowie & Bond, a Baltimore-based law firm.
In 1998, the firm established its affiliate McGuireWoods Consulting to provide services to government and in public relations.
2000–present
After a series of mergers in the early 2000s, including with Ross and Hardies (2003), Gordon & Glickson (2006), and Helms Mullis & Wicker (2008), the firm rebranded as McGuireWoods.
In 2009, McGuireWoods opened a London office after a merger with Grundberg Mocatta Rakison.
In 2014, McGuireWoods opened its Dallas, Texas office. In 2015, the firm entered into an alliance with FuJae Partners, a Shanghai-based law firm and opened a second office in Los Angeles. In 2016, the firm opened an office in San Francisco. As of 2019, the firm has 21 offices worldwide.
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In December 2017, Richard Cullen stepped down as chairman of McGuireWoods and partner Jonathan Harmon became the firm's new chairman. In 2019, Richard Davis was hired as the new chief operating officer.
In June 2020, the Open Technology Fund (OTF) asked McGuireWoods, which had been advising it pro bono, for help in a conflict with the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its then-director Michael Pack. McGuireWoods advised it could not help in the case. OTF learned in December 2020 that the reason for the refusal was that McGuireWoods had decided to investigate OTF on behalf of USAGM and Pack instead. The Government Accountability Project, citing records obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, claimed McGuireWoods had billed USAGM $1.625 million at an average rate of $320 an hour after receiving a no-bid contract to investigate OTF as well as Voice of America employees.
In 2022, Donald Trump's Save America political action committee paid McGuireWoods close to $900,000 in legal fees.
In 2025, McGuireWoods appointed three former U.S. Attorneys with firm histories, among four new managing partners, including Ryan K. Buchanan from the Northern District of Georgia; Michael F. Easley Jr. from the Eastern District of North Carolina; and Eric G. Olshan from the Western District of Pennsylvania.
From Wikipedia’s article on McGuireWoods, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5