Herbert Smith Freehills

Herbert Smith Freehills LLP

Headquarters	London, England Sydney, Australia
No. of offices	26 (2020)
No. of lawyers	2,600 (2024)
No. of employees	c.5,000 (2024)
Key people	Justin D'Agostino (CEO); Rebecca Maslen-Stannage (Senior Partner)
Revenue	£1.306 billion (2023/24)
Profit per equity partner	£1.315 million (2023/24)
Date founded	2012 (by merger)
Founder	Herbert Smith Freehills
Company type	Limited liability partnership (Herbert Smith Freehills LLP) Partnership (Herbert Smith Freehills)
Website	herbertsmithfreehills.com

Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) is a leading global law firm with headquarters in London, England and Sydney, Australia. HSF has been widely acknowledged as one of the world's most elite and selective law firms, and, as of 2024, was the 33rd largest by revenue. It was formed on 1 October 2012 by a merger between the United Kingdom-based Herbert Smith founded in 1882, then a member of the Silver Circle of leading UK law firms, and Freehills founded in 1852, one of the Big Six Australian law firms.

Herbert Smith Freehills is one of the world's most prestigious law firms, and has achieved particular recognition in dispute resolution. As of 2024, HSF retains the most UK-listed clients of all law firms, representing 116 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. It also advises the highest number of FTSE 100 clients in United Kingdom Court of Appeal cases.

History

Prior to merger

Herbert Smith

Herbert Smith was established by Norman Herbert Smith in 1882. Its specialisation in the early 20th century was in company flotations and advice to mining companies. Later its work expanded to litigation, mergers, and equity matters. Its strong relationship with US law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore led to Time Warner instructing Herber Smith for its £220bn acquisition of America Online (AOL) – the largest merger of all time. In 2011, revenues were £465 million and profits-per-equity-partner (PEP) were £900,000.

Herbert Smith had a European partnership with the German firm Gleiss Lutz and the Benelux firm Stibbe until 2011. A plan to merge with those firms did not go ahead.

At the time of its merger with Freehills, Herbert Smith had around 240 partners, 1,300 lawyers, with offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Freehills

Freehills was an Australia-based commercial law firm that operated in the Asia Pacific region. In Australia, it was one of the Australian Big Six law firms.

The firm traced its history back to the practices of Clarke & Moule in Melbourne (1853), Stephen Henry Parker in Perth (1868), Bernard Austin Freehill in Sydney (1871), and John Nicholson in Perth (1896). Predecessors of the firm are notable for having adopted open employment policies, hiring Catholics and Jews when many other firms would not. They are also notable for becoming the first major Australian law firm to appoint a female partner, and forming the first national law partnership in Australia.

At the time of its merger with Herbert Smith, Freehills had 190 partners and 800 lawyers. It had four offices in Australia's capital cities, and an office in Singapore. It had associations with various firms across Asia, many of which continue to this day.

Post-merger

Herbert Smith Freehills was born after completing merger in October 2012. The merger involved an immediate financial integration of the firms in a single partnership and profit pool, an unusual structure for these kinds of mergers. The merger was complicated by differing remuneration structures across the firms; with Herbert Smith practicing a lockstep compensation system, while Freehills practised a merit-based compensation system. Freehills also had a greater number of equity partners.

After merging, the firm began practice in Germany. In September 2012 it opened an office in New York City, focused on international dispute resolution work. A South Korean office was opened in Seoul in April 2013. The combined firm also nearly doubled its total number of international secondees in its first year of operations. In November 2015, Herbert Smith Freehills announced the opening of its third office in Germany, Düsseldorf, headed by Clifford Chance's former head of litigation and arbitration practice.

In February 2022, the Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills taxation practice was sold to PwC.

Herbert Smith Freehills is consistently called upon for some of the highest value and most complex litigation. In 2022, Herbert Smith Freehills was the law firm with the highest average claim value in the High Court and has maintained its position within the top three firms every year since.

Merger with Kramer Levin

In November 2024, Herbet Smith Freehills announced that it will combine with US-based Kramer Levin to form one of the top-20 global law firms by headcount. The new firm will be known as Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, abbreviated as HSF Kramer in the US, and will have more than 2,700 lawyers across 25 offices in America, the UK, Europe and Asia.

Offices

As of September 2020, HSF has 26 offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. The Seoul and Tokyo offices are staffed by Commonwealth lawyers and do not practice local law. The Tokyo office relies upon a referral arrangement with Japan's Big four law firms to avoid competing with them for local legal work, and due to difficulties with hiring Japanese attorneys.

Notable clients

HSF has assisted numerous notable clients over its years as a firm, some famous, some infamous. Some examples include:

Sergey Podoprigorov

Herbert Smith Freehills helped Sergey Podoprigorov, a judge in the Russian Federation who sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent journalist, author, filmmaker, human rights activist and political prisoner that received an extremely harsh prison sentence in Russia in 2023 after publicly criticizing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. HSF prepared an appeal asking the United States Department of the Treasury to remove Podoprigorov from the "Magnitsky list" of corrupt Russian officials responsible for persecution of people fighting against corruption and repression in the country.

Hotel Chocolat

Herbert Smith Freehills advised UK chocolatier Hotel Chocolat on its £534m takeover by US food giant Mars Inc. in 2023.

Financial Conduct Authority

Herbert Smith Freehills successfully secured a landmark victory for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in a High Court case that clarifies whether businesses were entitled to compensation for Covid-19-related disruptions under their insurance policies. The ruling dealt a significant blow to insurers, potentially triggering payouts for tens of thousands of businesses with business interruption claims.

Google

Herbert Smith Freehills is representing Google in a £13.6bn collective action lawsuit, which has been allowed to proceed by London's competition tribunal. The case alleges that Google is abusing its dominant position by prioritising its own advertising technology.

Aercap Ireland Limited

In 2021, AerCap turned to Cravath Swaine & Moore and Herbert Smith Freehills for counsel on its $30 billion acquisition of General Electric’s Capital Aviation Services (GE Capital Aviation Services).

Herbert Smith Freehills is representing Aercap Ireland Limited, the world’s largest aircraft lessor, in a major and complex legal battle in the High Court to recover losses from insurers over more than 400 aircraft stranded in Russia due to Western sanctions. The planes, worth almost $10 billion, have remained in Russia since the sanctions were imposed following the war in Ukraine, with Russian lessees failing to return them. Aercap is pursuing a claim for $3.5 billion from insurers, including AIG and Lloyd’s, under its all-risk insurance policy, or alternatively, $1.2 billion under its war-risk policy. The case, being heard in the Rolls Building’s ‘super court,’ is one of the most high-profile and costly trials in the UK, with insurers challenging the claims on several grounds.

External links

• Herbert Smith Freehills