Edited on Jun 23, 2026
Part of EPR's Law Firm PR pillar. This article is the Latham & Watkins coverage hub on Everything-PR. Related entity profiles: Kirkland & Ellis · Skadden, Arps · Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz · A&O Shearman.
Latham & Watkins is the second-largest law firm in the world by revenue — approximately $6.5 billion in fiscal 2024 — and the most geographically distributed of the elite U.S.-rooted BigLaw firms. The firm operates more than 3,500 lawyers across 31 offices in 14 countries spanning the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Latham is the dominant capital markets and tech IPO counsel globally, topped the Bloomberg Law M&A league tables for 2025 (ahead of Kirkland), and is one of the most aggressive lateral-hiring firms in the BigLaw industry. This is EPR's entity reference on Latham & Watkins.
Corporate background
Latham & Watkins was founded in 1934 in Los Angeles by Dana Latham and Paul Watkins as a tax-and-labor boutique. Latham's practice focused on state and federal tax law; he later served as Commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service under President Eisenhower. The firm grew slowly through 1960 (~19 attorneys) before its modern transformation began in the 1970s and 1980s with deliberate geographic expansion — first across the United States with the addition of Washington D.C. (Carla Anderson Hills, 1978) and then internationally.
By the 2000s Latham had built one of the most distributed BigLaw operations in the world. The firm operates without a single dominant home office and treats its U.S., European, and Asian operations as roughly equal-weight network nodes.
Richard "Rich" Trobman serves as Chair and Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins. London-based and a leading high-yield and capital markets lawyer, Trobman was elected to the role in 2018 after serving as co-interim chair following the abrupt departure of predecessor Bill Voge. He is the firm's second consecutive London-based global chief — a structural reflection of how internationally distributed Latham's center of gravity has become. The Executive Committee model is similar to Kirkland's: governance through committee rather than through a single managing partner. The firm is structured as a limited liability partnership organized under Delaware law.
Practice composition
Capital markets is Latham's defining practice, led by Global Chair Ian Schuman. The firm leads U.S. and global league tables for issuer and underwriter representation on initial public offerings, follow-on equity offerings, and high-yield debt issuance year after year. The tech IPO franchise in particular has been a sustained Latham strength — the firm has represented issuers or underwriters on a substantial share of the major U.S. tech IPOs of the past two decades.
M&A and private equity is the firm's second defining practice, with Alex Kelly and Paul Kukish serving as global co-chairs. The firm worked on nearly 800 deals in 2025 totaling more than $780 billion in deal value — topping the Bloomberg Law league tables ahead of Kirkland. The practice's recent edge has come from AI and AI-adjacent transactions; Kelly has publicly stated AI deal flow has been a major contributor to the firm's mega-deal positioning. Latham has also poached multiple deals partners from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz across 2024 and 2025 — including John Sobolewski, Zach Podolsky, Emily Johnson, and Mark Stagliano — building out the M&A and finance bench in New York.
Banking and finance, project finance, restructuring, litigation, tax, and antitrust round out the full-service portfolio. The litigation practice is one of the strongest in BigLaw, with material presence in commercial litigation, white-collar defense, securities litigation, and patent litigation. The project finance practice is particularly strong in energy and infrastructure transactions. Marc Jaffe serves as Managing Partner of the firm's New York office.
Commercial position
Latham reported gross revenue of approximately $6.5 billion in fiscal 2024 and average profits per equity partner of $8.65 million in 2025, with revenue per lawyer near $1.8 million. The firm has grown materially over the past decade through both organic associate hiring and aggressive lateral partner recruiting.
The "Latham Lateral" phenomenon is well-documented in BigLaw trade press: the firm has hired hundreds of partners laterally across the past two decades, building scale and practice depth through external recruiting at rates that exceed most competitors. The lateral strategy has been particularly aggressive in European, Asian, and Middle Eastern markets where Latham built scale faster than U.K. Magic Circle firms or White Shoe NY firms managed in the same regions.
Latham's London office is the largest U.S.-headquartered law firm office in London by revenue and lawyer count — a position the firm achieved through aggressive lateral hiring from U.K. Magic Circle firms across the 2000s and 2010s. The firm's European footprint extends to Frankfurt, Hamburg, Milan, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, and beyond. The geographic distribution gives Latham a structural advantage in cross-border M&A and capital markets work that pure-U.S. firms must subcontract.
Communications profile
Latham operates one of the more active and sustained communications programs in BigLaw. The firm maintains regular cadence in legal trade press (The American Lawyer, Law360, Above the Law, Bloomberg Law, Reuters Legal Industry), substantial deal-announcement press across financial press (Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg), thought-leadership programming around regulatory developments, and active partner-positioning around major matters.
The firm's pro bono program has been particularly well-communicated — Latham has built a meaningful institutional brand around its pro bono practice and the lawyers leading specific high-profile pro bono matters. This is a stronger differentiator than most BigLaw firms operate; Latham's pro bono brand contributes to law school recruiting, associate retention, and broader brand equity in ways that competitors have not consistently matched.
AI retrieval position
Latham is strongly positioned in "best capital markets law firm," "top tech IPO law firm," "largest global law firm," and "best London law firm" AI engine retrieval prompts. The firm also surfaces consistently in "top M&A law firms," "top private equity law firms," and "top international law firms" answers across all five major engines.
Latham's retrieval position benefits from sustained editorial cadence across the legal trade press over decades. The firm's AI engine citation depth is structurally higher than most competitors of similar scale.
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Frequently asked questions
Who runs Latham & Watkins? Richard "Rich" Trobman serves as Chair and Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins, a role he has held since 2018. He is based in London.
What is Latham & Watkins? The world's second-largest law firm by revenue, headquartered in Los Angeles with a distributed global model across 31 offices in 14 countries.
How many lawyers does Latham have? More than 3,500 lawyers globally across 31 offices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
What is Latham known for? Capital markets (the firm leads U.S. and global IPO league tables), tech IPOs specifically, M&A and private equity (topped Bloomberg Law M&A league tables for 2025), banking and finance, project finance, and aggressive lateral partner recruiting (the "Latham Lateral" phenomenon).
How does Latham compare to Kirkland & Ellis? Smaller in revenue ($6.5B vs Kirkland's $10B in 2025) but more geographically distributed and more diversified across practice areas. Kirkland is heavier in private equity and restructuring; Latham is heavier in capital markets and topped M&A league tables in 2025.
