Seyfarth Shaw LLP ( ) is an international AmLaw 100 law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in Chicago in 1945 by Henry Seyfarth, Lee Shaw, and Owen Fairweather, Seyfarth Shaw initially focused on the area of labor law.
As of 2025, the firm was among the most profitable law firms in the United States with approximately 1,000 attorneys
Lorie Almon was elected chair in 2023 and assumed the position of chair and managing partner of the firm on January 1, 2024. She is the first woman to hold that title at Seyfarth.
Seyfarth Shaw has 17 offices globally. This includes 13 active offices in 12 U.S. cities: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles (two offices), New York, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The firm has four international locations, including Hong Kong, Melbourne, Sydney, and London.
Attorneys Henry Seyfarth, Lee C. Shaw, and Owen Fairweather established Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago in 1945. All three attorneys met while associates at the firm of Pope & Ballard which originally focused on the area of labor law.
By 1964, the firm was known as Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, having incorporated the name of partner Ray Geraldson.
In 1971, the firm established a presence in Washington, D.C. and expanded into legislative and regulatory affairs.
After years of strikes, picketing, boycotts and solidarity actions in support of California farmworkers â such as the Delano grape strike and the Salad Bowl strike â the firm opened an office in Los Angeles in 1973, seeking to represent farmowners in labor negotiations against United Farm Workers. The struggle ultimately led to the enactment of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which established the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state.
The firm further expanded throughout the 1970s and 1980s, opening offices in New York City (1978) and San Francisco (1984).
In 1990, the firm opened its first international office in Brussels, Belgium in order to assist corporate clients in the European Economic Community. The firm further expanded through the 1990s, opening offices in Sacramento (1990), Houston (1995), Atlanta (1996) and Boston (1999).
In 1999, the firm, wanting to change the perception that it "only did employment law and only practiced in Chicago," rebranded and shortened its name to Seyfarth Shaw.
From 2000 to 2003, the firm underwent a series of strategic mergers: with McCullough Sherrill in 2000, Chappell White in 2001, and DâÂÂAncona & Pflaum in 2003.
The firm further expanded internationally in the 2010s, opening offices in:
An acquisition of nearly two dozen attorneys from Atlanta-based Morris, Manning & Martin to the Atlanta office in 2025 expanded the firmâÂÂs national transactional footprint across middle market corporate, hospitality, real estate private equity, fund formation, and tax practices.
Amid geopolitical tensions and an exodus of American law firms from mainland China, the Shanghai office was closed in 2025.
In 2026, the New York-based boutique firm Mukasey Young dissolved to join Seyfarth. The trial-focused team expanded the firmâÂÂs capabilities in white collar defense, complex litigation, and health care regulatory matters.
Starting in 2004, managing partner J. Stephen Poor began encouraging the use of sophisticated management systems to drive efficiency as a way to modernize legal service delivery. The following year, Poor championed the launch of SeyfarthLean, a team of 15 project managers dedicated to applying lean principles to legal work. In 2008, the firm launched SeyfarthLean Consulting, which offered process improvement services to clients and their in-house legal departments.
The firm established a Legal Technology Innovations Office in 2012 to explore how software could enhance client-facing legal services. This initiative led to the creation of Seyfarth Labs in 2016, bringing together 21 lawyers and software engineers to develop new tools and platforms. Seyfarth Labs became one of the first innovation incubators launched within a law firm. Some of the projects launched by the Seyfarth Labs team includes automated contract and discovery templates, a real-time COVID-19 resource tracker, and digital intake tools supporting the transition to electric vehicles.
In 2017, Seyfarth partnered with software company Blue Prism to develop robotic process automation (RPA) solutions designed to handle repetitive tasks, freeing attorneys to focus on more strategic legal work.
The firm has been recognized for legal innovation and business process improvement. They were among the first to embrace Lean Six Sigma in legal project management, an initiative later profiled in a Harvard Law School case study.
In 2024, the firm invited its attorneys and professional staff to propose solutions to pressing legal or business issues. The inaugural competition generated 59 submissions, including an AI-assisted pre-bill review tool, an AI-enhanced playbook for client and deal teams, and contextualized training modules for associates. The winning project was later developed into a practical tool by Seyfarth Labs. A second internal competition was held in 2025.
The American Lawyer ranks Seyfarth 61st on its annual AmLaw 200 ranking of the largest U.S. law firms by revenue. The National Law Journals "NLJ 500" 2025 list ranks Seyfarth 63rd among the largest law firms in the United States. Top Legal 500, U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers 2025 âÂÂBest Law Firmsâ awarded SeyfarthâÂÂs IP group a National Tier 1 ranking.