# Perkins Coie

Perkins Coie LLP (/ˈkuːiː/ KOO-ee) is an American law firm based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1912, it is recognized as an Am Law 50 firm. It is the largest law firm headquartered in the Pacific Northwest and has 21 offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia. The firm provides corporate, commercial litigation, intellectual property, and regulatory legal advice to a broad range of clients, including prominent technology companies like Google, Microsoft, Intel, Meta, and Amazon. The firm is known for its pro bono work.
Perkins Coie has represented Democratic and liberal groups. In 2025, the law firm as well as Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was targeted by the Donald Trump administration as part of a larger effort to punish law firms that worked for his political opponents.

## History

The firm has represented the Boeing Company since the founding of the aerospace company in 1916. Perkins Coie has been named one of Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" for 22 consecutive years, recently ranking #23 on the list.
In 2024, Perkins Coie's pro bono team successfully secured a grant of asylum for a former Afghan Air Force Pilot.
The firm was an early representative of fintech and blockchain interests and has one of the largest law firm blockchain and digital currency practices. Perkins Coie also counsels startups and established tech companies. It launched the Perkins Coie Tech Venture index in 2019, which measures the overall health and trajectory of the emerging growth technology and venture capital ecosystem.
In 2018, Perkins Coie joined the American Bar Association's campaign targeting substance-use disorders and mental health issues among lawyers.
In 2019, the firm became a signatory to the Mansfield Rule, which aims to diversify the leadership of large law firms by broadening the candidate pool for senior management positions. Perkins Coie plans to move their Seattle headquarters to the Russell Investments Center in 2025. Previously, they had occupied 1201 Third Avenue since its opening in 1988.
In March 2024, Perkins Coie announced the closure of its office in Shanghai, China. Later in September, the firm confirmed that it has commenced the process of closing its Beijing office and will shift its strategic focus in China to Shenzhen. However, days later Loeb & Loeb announced that it will take over Perkins Coie IP firm, which was set up in 2019 in Shenzhen, as well as Perkins Coie Beijing team of 17 lawyers.
In May 2024, the firm announced the launch of a London office with a technology-focused corporate practice. The London office is led by corporate lawyer Ian Bagshaw.

## Clientele

Perkins Coie is well-known for advising many of the world’s largest technology companies, including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft as well as large corporations like Boeing, Costco, and Starbucks. The firm has advised Microsoft on its growing partnership with OpenAI, the research and development company behind ChatGPT [2023]; guided YouTube TV on its Sunday Ticket broadcast agreement with the National Football League [2022]; and represented Amazon before the International Trade Commission with respect to patent litigation [2023/4].

## Political Law Practice

Perkins Coie's Political Law Practice was founded by attorney Bob Bauer in 1980. Up until 2021, the practice's clients primarily included Democratic candidates and other left leaning organizations. In August of 2021, however, the attorneys working on partisan/progressive issues left the practice and formed the Elias Law Group. Perkins Coie's Political Law Practice now focuses on corporate clients.
For the 2016 United States presidential election, the practice successfully brought several lawsuits against what they asserted were restrictive state voting laws that unduly targeted minority voters. These efforts were funded by the Democratic Party as well as $5 million provided by billionaire George Soros. The practice received criticism from some civil rights groups because the firm brought lawsuits primarily in jurisdictions that would help the Democratic Party. The NAACP, for example, felt that the battle for voting rights might then be "dismissed as partisan".
The Political Law Practice, lead by attorney Marc Elias at the time, was hired in 2015 as counsel for the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. As part of its representation of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Perkins Coie retained the intelligence firm Fusion GPS for opposition research services. Those services began in April 2016 and concluded before the 2016 U.S. presidential election in early November. A notable product of that opposition research was the Steele dossier describing alleged attempts by Russia to promote the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. During the campaign, the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Perkins Coie $5.6 million and $3.6 million respectively. On October 24, 2017, Perkins Coie released Fusion GPS from its client confidentiality obligation. The FEC conducted an investigation into misreported 2016 payments to Perkins Coie and levied a fine of over $100,000, jointly paid by the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Following the 2020 presidential election, Alias and the Political Law Practice handled the responses to dozens of lawsuits filed by the Donald Trump campaign, in which Trump sought to overturn Joe Biden's win. Out of 65 such court cases, Perkins Coie prevailed in 64. In 2021, as several Republican-dominated state legislatures passed laws to tighten election procedures and impose stricter voting requirements, Perkins Coie filed suits challenging the new laws, often within hours of the bills being signed.
In 2021, Marc Elias, 13 other partners, and 36 associates left the Political Law Practice to form the Elias Law Group. The Elias Law Group is a mission-driven law firm "focused on representing the Democratic Party, Democratic campaigns, nonprofit organizations, and individuals committed to advancing and protecting civil rights." One of the reasons for the split with Perkins Coie was that representing the Democratic Party was causing conflicts of interest with Perkins Coie's other corporate clients.
Perkins Coie's Political Law Practice now focuses on providing political law advice to corporate clients.

## Diversity Fellowship Program

In 1991, Perkins Coie instituted a Diversity Fellowship Program. The program was open to Black, Hispanic, Native American or LGBT law students. Those that were admitted were given a stipend and an internship at the law firm. Internships often lead to employment. The program was design to help recruit people of color which major law firms have had difficulty in adding to the ranks of their partners.
In October of 2023, the firm removed the language specifying that the program was only open people of a certain race, sexual orientation or gender identity. The program is now open to all law students. Applicants are asked to write about their life experiences and are evaluated based on their "efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion". Perkins Coie made this change in response to a lawsuit brought by a group led by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum. In response to the changes, Blum's group dropped the lawsuit.

## Notable cases

The firm represented Amazon in its initial public offering in 1997.
The firm represented Christine Gregoire in the prolonged litigation surrounding her 2004 Washington gubernatorial election.
A team of Perkins lawyers successfully represented Al Franken in his recount and legal battle over the 2008 Senatorial election in Minnesota.
In 2006, Perkins Coie, led by partner Harry Schneider, represented Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the alleged driver and bodyguard of Osama bin Laden. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Court ruled that the Bush Administration's use of military commissions to try terrorism suspects was unconstitutional.
Perkins Coie worked in the Doe v. Reed case concerning petition signatures in state ballot initiative campaigns, which was argued successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 28, 2010.
In 2010, Perkins Coie sought advisory opinions from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) declaring that certain Google and Facebook advertisements were covered by the "small items" and "impracticable" exemptions of the law that otherwise requires a political advertisement to include a disclaimer revealing who paid for it. The commission granted Google's request in a divided vote, and deadlocked on Facebook's request. According to The New York Times, "Facebook nonetheless proceeded as if it was exempt from the disclaimer requirement". In October 2017, Perkins Coie lobbied to defeat a bill called the Honest Ads Act, which would require internet companies to disclose who paid for political ads.
Perkins Coie was retained to conduct the independent investigation into potential sexual abuse by Richard Strauss during the course of his employment with Ohio State University wrestling program. The firm conducted 600 interviews with 520 subjects over the course of a year, an investigation paid for by OSU and expected to cost over $6.2 million by its completion. Of 177 students who personally confirmed abuse by the doctor, and 38 more who confirmed abuse but could not remember which staff person was the perpetrator, according to the university's investigation, 48 were from the wrestling program. Because the report did not specifically mention the failure to address the abuse, or the lack of same, on the part of Republican Congressman Jim Jordan who coached in the programs for eight years while Strauss was there, Jordan claimed he, therefore, had been exonerated by the investigation.

## Notable alumni

Alumni of the firm include Salesforce President and CFO Amy Weaver; the 16th Lieutenant Governor of Washington Cyrus Habib; former Attorney General of Washington State Rob McKenna; 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Margaret McKeown, Ronald M. Gould, and Eric D. Miller; Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Tiffany Cunningham; Oregon Supreme Court Justice Chris Garrett; and U.S. Representative Colin Allred.

## Trump-Russia investigation

In September 2021, Michael Sussmann, a well-known cybersecurity lawyer at Perkins Coie, was indicted by the John Durham Special Counsel for allegedly making a false statement to the FBI in September 2016. Sussmann resigned from Perkins Coie after he was charged by the special counsel. After a jury trial, Sussmann was unanimously acquitted in May 2022.

## Targeting by Donald Trump

On March 6, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that barred the federal government from using Perkins Coie's services, suspended the security clearances of lawyers working for the firm, barred lawyers of the firm from entering federal office buildings, and ordered departmental reviews with the intention of ending government contracts with the clients of Perkins Coie. The order accuses Perkins and Coie of "dishonest and dangerous activity". It also accuses them of racial discrimination. The rationale is that by seeking to become more racially diverse, they discriminate against white people.
The order was part of a larger campaign by the Trump administration to punish law firms that worked for his political opponents. According to The Washington Post, "the move could have a chilling effect on law firms’ willingness to take on clients and cases that run counter to the Trump administration, challenging a fundamental tenet of the rule of law in the United States that everyone should have access to legal representation." On the other hand, according to the Washington Examiner, the executive order "could be viewed as a part of" Trump's effort to address corruption in the FBI and the Justice department since Perkins Coie provided services to the FBI and Justice Department related to the Russian collusion investigation during Trump's first term.
According to legal experts, the executive order raises First Amendment concerns related to Perkins Coie's freedom of speech, and Fifth Amendment concerns related to not providing them with due process. The freedom of speech concerns stem from targeting Perkins Coie based on the clients they represent. This is a potential example of viewpoint discrimination. The due process concerns relate to the fact that the government has not given Perkins Coie notice of the actions against it, nor has it given Perkins Coie a chance to respond to said notice before the actions were implemented by the order.
A spokesperson for Perkins Coie has said the order "is patently unlawful, and we intend to challenge it". On March 10, 2025, Perkins Coie hired the law firm Williams & Connolly in response to the executive order.
On March 12, 2025, U.S. district court judge Beryl Howell entered a temporary restraining order that blocked most of the provisions of Trump's executive order. She said that Trump's action "sends little chills down my spine".