Patton Boggs
Encyclopedia
Patton Boggs is a full service law firm and lobbyist headquartered in Washington, D.C. It has more than 600 lawyers and professionals in nine locations in the United States and the Middle East. Patton Boggs specializes in litigation, public policy, business, intellectual property, international
and trade law
with over 200 international clients from over 70 countries.
In addition to the firm's Washington, D.C.
headquarters, it maintains offices in New York City
, Newark
, Anchorage
, Dallas, Denver, Northern Virginia
, Doha, Qatar
and Abu Dhabi
, UAE.
It has "participated in the formation of every major multilateral trade agreement considered by Congress." Boggs joined the firm in 1966 after serving as an economist for the Joint Executive Committee and in the executive office of President Lyndon B. Johnson
.
Members of the firm have included: Timothy May, the former general counsel to the United States Post Office Department ; Ron Brown, who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee
and became Commerce Secretary in the first Clinton Administration; former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater
; former Sen. John Breaux
, D-La.; Stuart Pape, who held senior positions at the Food and Drug Administration; and Benjamin Ginsberg
, the Republican strategist behind the 2000 presidential election Florida vote recount.
The 2008 Vault.com survey of 18,800 associates ranked Patton Boggs as having the second best record for pro bono work in the country. The Vault.com cited the firm’s active pro bono committee as one key factor in the firm’s rise to second place from fourth last year. The firm recommends that all lawyers do pro bono work. Each associate has a commitment to perform a minimum of 100 hours of pro bono service per year.
International. According to Associated Press, "Patton Boggs earned millions helping project reassurances to Congress and its customers that Metabolife products were safe. Patton Boggs attorneys helped prepare carefully worded responses to regulators. Between 2001 and this year, Metabolife paid Patton Boggs $1.8 million to lobby Congress."
Patton Boggs' work for Metabolife has resulted in legal scrutiny: "One former and four current Patton Boggs attorneys were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in San Diego, court documents say. Prosecutors allege company founder Michael Ellis lied about Metabolife's safety record in a 1998 letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
, which documents say Patton Boggs attorneys helped draft. ... In mid 2002, Patton Boggs lobbyist Lanny Davis
wrote a senator whose subcommittee was investigating Metabolife that the company had received only 78 'unproven, anecdotal allegations' of strokes, heart attacks, seizures and deaths." Company documents released just one week later revealed that the number of health complaints actually numbered in the thousands.
In April 2002, Members of Congress objected to a video prepared by Patton Boggs promoting exploration for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
, hosted on the U.S. Interior Department's web site. The Department's distribution of the video was in apparent violation of a law forbidding federal agencies to engage in PR activities "designed to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress." The Department is becoming "a cinema house for lobbyists," says Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey. "The Interior Department should not be spreading oil company propaganda any more than the Department of Energy
should be promoting Enron
stock," he said. "It's not their job."
According to the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste
Patton Boggs was hired in 2007 by the Vicini
family, one of the most influential and wealthiest families in the Dominican Republic
, to bring a defamation suit against the producers of the documentary The Price of Sugar
which depicts the living conditions of Haitian immigrant workers on the family's sugar plantations as well as death threats against Christopher Hartley
, a Catholic priest working on behalf of the Haitian immigrants. The defamation suit against Uncommon Productions and producer Bill Haney alleges 53 factual inaccuracies." According to an NPR
interview conducted after the filing of the lawsuit, "'The misrepresentation are very egregious,' says Read McCaffrey, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs [representing the Vicinis], 'and as deceptive as I have seen in a very long time.'"
, Roll Call
, Influence and The Hill Newspaper
.
The firm’s business law practice has garnered recognition, including a #1 ranking among “Leading Legal Advisors” for number of deals closed by SNL Financial’s Bank M&A Weekly. In 2008, American Lawyer Media (ALM
) named the firm a Go-To Law Firm in the areas of corporate transactions/ mergers & acquisitions, securities, international, intellectual property, litigation, and labor & employment; and the firm was named a finalist for the “Best Islamic Finance Law Firm” by Islamic Business and Finance.
Patton Boggs is also one of American Banker
’s Top 25 Lead Legal Advisors and the firm is included in the list of the world’s Top Patent Firms, according to Intellectual Property Today. The firm has been recognized by Working Mother Magazine as one of the best firms for women to work in part because of the flexibility and benefits it provides working mothers.
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
and trade law
International trade law
International trade law includes the appropriate rules and customs for handling trade between countries. However, it is also used in legal writings as trade between private sectors, which is not right. This branch of law is now an independent field of study as most governments has become part of...
with over 200 international clients from over 70 countries.
In addition to the firm's Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
headquarters, it maintains offices in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Newark
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
, Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
, Dallas, Denver, Northern Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, Doha, Qatar
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
and Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...
, UAE.
History
The firm was founded in 1962 by James R. Patton, Jr. and joined soon after by George Blow and then Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr.Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr.
Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr. , is an American lawyer and lobbyist, based in Washington, D.C.Boggs is the son of the late Thomas Hale Boggs , a United States Representative from Louisiana from 1941–43 and again from 1947 until his death in 1972, and Lindy Boggs , a United States Representative from...
It has "participated in the formation of every major multilateral trade agreement considered by Congress." Boggs joined the firm in 1966 after serving as an economist for the Joint Executive Committee and in the executive office of President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
.
Members of the firm have included: Timothy May, the former general counsel to the United States Post Office Department ; Ron Brown, who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
and became Commerce Secretary in the first Clinton Administration; former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater
Rodney Slater
Rodney Slater may refer to:*Rodney E. Slater , former United States Secretary of Transportation*Rodney Slater , member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band...
; former Sen. John Breaux
John Breaux
John Berlinger Breaux is a former United States senator from Louisiana who served from 1987 until 2005. He was also a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1972 to 1987. He was considered one of the more conservative national legislators from the Democratic Party...
, D-La.; Stuart Pape, who held senior positions at the Food and Drug Administration; and Benjamin Ginsberg
Benjamin Ginsberg
Benjamin L. Ginsberg is a partner and lobbyist for Patton Boggs LLP, where he has represented political parties, political campaigns, candidates, members of Congress and state legislatures, Governors, corporations, trade associations, businesses, and individuals participating in the political...
, the Republican strategist behind the 2000 presidential election Florida vote recount.
The 2008 Vault.com survey of 18,800 associates ranked Patton Boggs as having the second best record for pro bono work in the country. The Vault.com cited the firm’s active pro bono committee as one key factor in the firm’s rise to second place from fourth last year. The firm recommends that all lawyers do pro bono work. Each associate has a commitment to perform a minimum of 100 hours of pro bono service per year.
Controversies
Patton Boggs has lobbied on behalf of the dietary supplement company MetabolifeMetabolife
Metabolife International, Inc., is an multi-level marketing company based in San Diego, California which manufactures dietary supplements. Metabolife's best-selling product, an ephedra-based supplement called Metabolife 356, once generated hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales...
International. According to Associated Press, "Patton Boggs earned millions helping project reassurances to Congress and its customers that Metabolife products were safe. Patton Boggs attorneys helped prepare carefully worded responses to regulators. Between 2001 and this year, Metabolife paid Patton Boggs $1.8 million to lobby Congress."
Patton Boggs' work for Metabolife has resulted in legal scrutiny: "One former and four current Patton Boggs attorneys were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in San Diego, court documents say. Prosecutors allege company founder Michael Ellis lied about Metabolife's safety record in a 1998 letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Food and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
, which documents say Patton Boggs attorneys helped draft. ... In mid 2002, Patton Boggs lobbyist Lanny Davis
Lanny Davis
Lanny J. Davis is an American lawyer and lobbyist. From 1996 to 1998, he served as a special counsel to President Bill Clinton.-Background:...
wrote a senator whose subcommittee was investigating Metabolife that the company had received only 78 'unproven, anecdotal allegations' of strokes, heart attacks, seizures and deaths." Company documents released just one week later revealed that the number of health complaints actually numbered in the thousands.
In April 2002, Members of Congress objected to a video prepared by Patton Boggs promoting exploration for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge...
, hosted on the U.S. Interior Department's web site. The Department's distribution of the video was in apparent violation of a law forbidding federal agencies to engage in PR activities "designed to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress." The Department is becoming "a cinema house for lobbyists," says Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey. "The Interior Department should not be spreading oil company propaganda any more than the Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
should be promoting Enron
Enron
Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 22,000 staff and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with...
stock," he said. "It's not their job."
According to the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste
Le Nouvelliste (Haiti)
Le Nouvelliste is a French-language daily newspaper printed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and distributed throughout the country, particularly the capital and 18 of the country's major cities....
Patton Boggs was hired in 2007 by the Vicini
Vicini
- Juan Bautista Vicini :Bautista, was born on February 25 1847 in Zoagli, a coastal village near Genoa. Son of Angelo and Anna Canepa Vicini. Juan Bautista Vicini left Italy and went to the Dominican Republic in 1860, when he was only twelve years old....
family, one of the most influential and wealthiest families in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, to bring a defamation suit against the producers of the documentary The Price of Sugar
The Price of Sugar
The Price of Sugar is a 2007 documentary directed by Bill Haney and produced by Haney and Eric Grunebaum about exploitation of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic involved with production of sugar, and the efforts of Spanish priest Father Christopher Hartley to ameliorate their situation. ...
which depicts the living conditions of Haitian immigrant workers on the family's sugar plantations as well as death threats against Christopher Hartley
Christopher Hartley
Christopher Hartley is a British-Spanish Catholic missionary priest who labored from 1997 to 2006 among the Haitian sugar cane workers of the bateyes in Los Llanos in the municipality of Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic to bring more humane conditions to their lives and work...
, a Catholic priest working on behalf of the Haitian immigrants. The defamation suit against Uncommon Productions and producer Bill Haney alleges 53 factual inaccuracies." According to an NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
interview conducted after the filing of the lawsuit, "'The misrepresentation are very egregious,' says Read McCaffrey, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs [representing the Vicinis], 'and as deceptive as I have seen in a very long time.'"
Rankings
The firm is one of American Lawyer's Top 100 US law firms and ranked in the top band of Government Relations law firms by Chambers USA. The firm is consistently ranked as the nation’s number one lobbying firm by the National JournalNational Journal
National Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends. National Journal was first published in 1969. Times Mirror owned the magazine from 1986 to 1997, when it was purchased by David G. Bradley...
, Roll Call
Roll Call
Roll Call is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C., United States, from Monday to Thursday when the United States Congress is in session and on Mondays only during recess. Roll Call reports news of legislative and political maneuverings on Capitol Hill, as well as political coverage of...
, Influence and The Hill Newspaper
The Hill (newspaper)
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....
.
The firm’s business law practice has garnered recognition, including a #1 ranking among “Leading Legal Advisors” for number of deals closed by SNL Financial’s Bank M&A Weekly. In 2008, American Lawyer Media (ALM
Alm
Alm may refer to:* An alpine pasture* Alm , Austria* The protagonist of Fire Emblem Gaiden* A stadium in Bielefeld, Germany, see "Bielefelder Alm"* An historical liquid measure, see aamALM may refer to:* Abundant Life Ministries...
) named the firm a Go-To Law Firm in the areas of corporate transactions/ mergers & acquisitions, securities, international, intellectual property, litigation, and labor & employment; and the firm was named a finalist for the “Best Islamic Finance Law Firm” by Islamic Business and Finance.
Patton Boggs is also one of American Banker
American Banker
American Banker is a daily trade newspaper covering the financial services industry. Founded in 1836and based in New York, American Banker has approximately 50 reporters and editors in six U.S. cities who monitor developments and breaking news affecting banks...
’s Top 25 Lead Legal Advisors and the firm is included in the list of the world’s Top Patent Firms, according to Intellectual Property Today. The firm has been recognized by Working Mother Magazine as one of the best firms for women to work in part because of the flexibility and benefits it provides working mothers.
Additional reading
Additional Reading:- Julie Gozan, "The Torturers' Lobby", Multinational Monitor, April 1993.
- The Center for Public Integrity, "Expenditures to individuals and organizations affiliated with Patton Boggs from Republican Governors Association", 2003.
- Tim Mazzucca, "Patton Boggs picks unlikely spot for international debut", Washington Business Journal, August 29, 2003.
- The Center for Responsive Politics, "Patton Boggs LLP", 1999–2000 election cycle contributions.
- The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation's Capital by Burt Solomon (Author)
- Felice Wagner, "Patton Boggs' Rain Man: An Interview with Mark Cowan", March 16, 2004.
External links
- Patton Boggs website
- Schema-root.org: current news feed for Patton Boggs
- LawPeriscope Profile
- Chambers and Partners profile