Greenberg Traurig

Greenberg Traurig is a multinational law and lobbying firm founded in Miami in 1967 by Mel Greenberg, Larry J. Hoffman, and Robert H. Traurig.

As of 2022, it is the ninth-largest law firm in the United States. The firm has 47 offices in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, and approximately 2750 attorneys worldwide as of 2024. Its 2023 revenue was well over $2 billion.

Their largest office is in New York City, and their clients have included Diane Von Furstenberg Studios, Conde Nast Publications, The New Yorker, New Yorker staff, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the plastics industry.

20th century
In the 1970s, Greenberg, Traurig and Hoffman became Greenberg, Traurig, Hoffman, Lipoff, and Quentel with the addition of attorneys Norman H. Lipoff and Albert D. Quentel as named shareholders. The late Florida governor Reubin Askew was a named shareholder in the early 1980s while he also sought the Democratic nomination for president.

Larry Hoffman became managing partner of the firm in 1991, at which point the firm began to expand nationwide, beginning with the opening of an office in New York City. In 1999, the firm expanded further, opening offices in Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and Wilmington, Delaware.

In 1999, the firm established the Greenberg Traurig Holly Skolnick Fellowship Foundation was established, which supports Equal Justice Works public interest lawyers. Previously named the Greenberg Traurig Fellowship Foundation, the program was renamed in 2013 in honor of the late Holly Skolnick, a Greenberg Traurig shareholder who helped establish the foundation and served as its president.

21st century
In 2000, the firm doubled the size of its New York City office by acquiring the local office of Graham & James.

In July 2009, Greenberg Traurig opened an office in London under the name of Greenberg Traurig Maher LLP, since renamed to Greenberg Traurig, LLP. The London office is currently located in The Shard skyscraper.

According to OpenSecrets, Greenberg Traurig was one of the top law firms contributing to federal candidates during the 2012 election cycle, donating $1.49 million, 50.2% to Democrats. By comparison, during that same period Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld donated $2.56 million, 66% to Democrats, while oil conglomerate ExxonMobil donated $2.66 million, 88% to Republicans. Since 1990, Greenberg Traurig contributed $11.2 million to federal campaigns.

Between 2011 and 2013, Greenberg Traurig participated in the American Bar Association's National Pro Bono Week.

In 2013, the firm launched a residency program to hire associates who are not recruited in traditional on-campus interviews by allowing them to spend up to a third of their billable hours in training for a one-year trial period.

In 2016, Brian Duffy became CEO. In July 2018, founding member Robert H. Traurig died at age 93 in Miami.

In 2020, Greenberg Traurig became the first law firm certified to be net carbon neutral by the Center for Resource Solutions. In October 2022, they were named a Mansfield Rule 5.0 Certified Plus firm, which requires at least 30% of leadership roles and 30% of staffed lawyers come from historically underrepresented groups.

Abramoff lobbying scandals
In January 2001, lobbyist Jack Abramoff left Preston Gates & Ellis to join Greenberg Traurig. At the firm, Abramoff assembled "Team Abramoff", a lobbying team that was implicated in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal and the monetary influence of Jack Abramoff.

Chicago patronage
In 2001, Victor Reyes, who headed the Hispanic Democratic Organization, joined Greenberg Traurig to lead the firm's Chicago lobbying practice. After Reyes's arrival, from 2001 to 2005, Greenberg earned $3.5 million in city-related legal fees, including for representing the city in the United Airlines and RCN Cable TV bankruptcies. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald subsequently alleged that Reyes's law office was central to a patronage scheme to funnel city jobs to Richard M. Daley campaign workers. Reyes resigned from Greenberg in August 2005 and was not charged, but prosecutors labeled him as a "co-schemer" in the indictment. Greenberg CEO César Álvarez stated, "I don't know about anything [Reyes] did in the firm that was wrong. I can only know what I have seen, and I only know that he hasn't been charged".

Philadelphia bankruptcy case
In May 2005, Philadelphia partner Robert S. Grossman pleaded guilty to charges that he had lied in a 1996 bankruptcy case to cover up his improper diversion of over $100,000 to his personal account when he worked as a real estate developer in Virginia.

Hamilton Bank
In June 2006, Greenberg Traurig agreed to pay the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation $7.6 million for its role as a legal adviser to the now-defunct Hamilton Bank in Miami, to settle allegations that it had helped to cover up bank officers' financial misconduct. The firm paid an additional $750,000 fine to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for allegedly protecting the bank's officers "by making materially false and misleading assertions and by suppressing material evidence".

Tax shelter kickbacks
In November 2006, Jay I. Gordon, the former chairman of Greenberg Traurig's tax practice, resigned from the New York State Bar Association and was disbarred for taking over $1.2 million in kickbacks on tax shelters that he had recommended to wealthy clients of the firm.

New York state real estate
In November 2008, a New York state court refused to dismiss a suit alleging that Robert J. Ivanhoe, head of its real estate group, disregarded his "legal and fiduciary duties" by taking a personal financial stake in a competitor to a client that had invested in a multibillion-dollar real estate venture. The former client sued Ivanhoe and Greenberg Traurig in April 2008 for breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with prospective economic damages, and malpractice. Greenberg Traurig responded that the allegations were "without merit" and that it would appeal the ruling.

Trademark infringement
In December 2008, the firm and several current and former firm attorneys, including Harley Lewin and Steven Wadyka, were sued in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by Catherine and Richard Snyder of Herndon, Virginia. Greenberg Traurig's client, Diane Von Furstenberg Studios, and Conde Nast Publications, The New Yorker and New Yorker staff reporter, Larissa MacFarquhar, were also named in the suit. The Snyders' suit stemmed from a suit filed in the same court by Diane Von Furstenberg Studios against Catherine Snyder in December 2006 for trademark infringement, which resulted in an award of damages to DVF Studios.

Insider trading
In 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) looked into insider trader allegations between United States House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health staff director Brian Sutter and Mark Hayes, a lobbyist at Greenberg Traurig. In November, 2015, New York U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe ordered the Committee and a former staffer to respond to an SEC subpoena request, but he did term the request "overbroad." The SEC sought to determine whether Sutter or anyone else from the Committee tipped off lobbyist Mark Hayes of Greenberg Traurig, which information was then forwarded to Height Securities LLC. Judge Gardephe reasoned that the congressional Speech and Debate Clause does not provide protection for information communicated by a legislative member or aide to a member of the public, and that Sutter's statements to employees of Greenberg are consequently not protected and must be produced. After two years of litigation and its 2nd Circuit appeal of the subpoena in December 2015, the Committee finally dropped its opposition to the order requested by the SEC.

Rudy Giuliani
In May 2018, the firm parted ways with Rudy Giuliani over his allegations that he would pay his clients' adversaries hush money in a manner consistent with the Stormy Daniels affair. Giuliani suggested that such payments were common, even without the knowledge of the clients.

Awards and rankings
It is the ninth largest law firm in the United States by headcount and ranks in the top 20 of the Am Law 100 by gross revenue, in the top 10 of the NLJ 500, and in the top 25 of the Global 200.