Just two weeks after Patton Boggs paid Chevron $15 million to settle claims related to a fraud-tainted Ecuador pollution judgment, the 400-lawyer firm is merging with Cleveland-based Squire Sanders.
The combined firm will be called Squire Patton Boggs.
It will be among the 25 biggest law firms in the world with about 1,600 lawyers in 21 countries.
In addition to its law practice, Patton Boggs was once one of Washington’s most influential “lobby shops.”
Revenue at the firm has been declining for five years.
Squire Sanders has about 1,300 lawyers in 39 offices across 19 countries.
In the Ecuador case, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York ruled in March that plaintiffs lawyer Steven Donziger used bribery and fraud to win a $9.5 billion court verdict against Chevron in Ecuador for polluting part of the Amazon rainforest.
The judge barred Donziger from enforcing the award.
Donziger is appealing the judge’s decision.
Patton Boggs had been working with Donziger by trying to enforce the Ecuador judgment against Chevron.
In April, Judge Kaplan tossed Patton Boggs’s claims against Chevron but allowed Chevron to sue the law firm for trying to collect the tainted Ecuador award.
“Patton Boggs regrets its involvement in this matter,” the law firm said when it paid Chevron $15 million to settle the oil company’s claims.
