Crowell & Moring


Crowell & Moring is an international law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in New York City, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Brussels, Shanghai, and Singapore. With approximately 550 lawyers, the firm advises multinational corporations on regulatory, litigation, corporate, and investigations matters. As of 2020, Crowell & Moring is ranked among the top 100 law firms in the United States in The American Lawyer's "AmLaw 100" list, based on gross revenue.

History

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 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 and opened an Anchorage, AK office 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.

Rankings and awards

More than one-third of Fortune 100 companies have engaged Crowell & Moring to handle litigation and trial matters. Crowell & Moring was ranked by The National Law Journal/Legal Times ranking as the “Washington Litigation Department of the Year” in the General Civil Litigation category.
The firm's Regulatory Department includes 100 former government officials who have held positions in the U.S. and abroad. The firm's Antitrust Group is recognized as "highly recommended" in Global Competition Review's "GCR 100: The World's Leading Competition Law and Economics Practices," in the Washington, D.C., New York, and California categories.
In 2011, Crowell & Moring partnered with the Association of Corporate Counsel on the ACC's first-ever "Guide to Value-Based Billing," a guide for in-house counsel and their outside law firms on pricing legal services to best suit the client's goals.
The firm has been recognized for innovation in client service. The firm has been named to the Financial Times list of “Innovative Lawyers.” In 2016, BTI Consulting Group's Power Rankings report ranked Crowell & Moring 20th in the nation in its list of top law firms recommended by in-house counsel. Crowell & Moring is ranked the #25th best law firm in the United States for firm culture.
The firm has also been recognized for its commitment to diversity as one of the “Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity” by Multicultural Law Magazine and as one of the “Best Law Firms for Women” by Working Mother. Crowell & Moring was the first major D.C.-based law firm in Washington, D.C. to elect a female chair.

Government contracts

Crowell & Moring's Government Contracts Practice is one of the largest in the U.S. and has experience with government agreements and subcontracts including the bidding and award process; ethics and compliance issues, including suspension and debarment; cost accounting rules and defective pricing; claims; audits and investigations; data rights; cybersecurity and privacy; export controls; security clearances; small business issues; domestic preference requirements; and due diligence and transactional assistance relating to mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic alliances. It was named a “Government Contracts Practice Group of the Year” by Law360.
Representative matters include a bid protest on behalf of Health Net of the award of a $16 billion Department of Defense managed health care contract; securing dismissal of allegations on summary judgment of a False Claims Act case seeking single damages of $1 billion against ACADEMI under a Department of State security contract in Iraq and Afghanistan; and securing a judgment of over $100 million for SUFI Network Services, Inc. in a breach of contract case against the U.S. Air Force's Non-Appropriated Fund Purchasing Office.
Crowell & Moring represented Blackwater Worldwide in the investigation after a series of deadly shootouts in the Iraqi capital left several Iraqi security agents and civilians dead in May 2007. According to the Legal Times, two other large defense contractors, Erinys Iraq and Kuwait & Gulf Link Transport Co., are among the firm's clients. Crowell & Moring also routinely counsels companies bidding for government contracts and in oversight investigations that sometimes result from those contracts.

''Pro bono'' and public service

Crowell & Moring provides significant pro bono aid on high-impact litigation, as well as representation to low-income individuals on poverty law cases, and is the recipient of The American Lawyer’s “Global Pro Bono Dispute of the Year” award.
In David v. Signal, the firm worked with Southern Poverty Law Center to lead litigation for the largest human trafficking case in U.S. history. After class action certification was denied by a Louisiana court, Crowell & Moring continued the case for class representatives, taking their case to trial, and securing an unprecedented collaboration of law firms to represent all the victims. After a five-week trial, Crowell & Moring secured $14.1 million in compensatory and punitive damages for the first five guest workers that went to trial. The U.S. Department of State's 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report referenced Signal's $14 million verdict as "the largest ever awarded by a jury in a labor trafficking case in the United States."
The firm has also been recognized for securing clemency for pro bono clients in the President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush administrations. Crowell & Moring has partnered with Families Against Mandatory Minimums and is also a participant in one of the largest pro bono efforts ever undertaken in the history of the United States—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.

Practices

Crowell & Moring's practice groups:
1001 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., is the current location of Crowell & Moring headquarters in Washington, D.C.