
Our history (PDF - 14.4MB)
Old hands at new ideas
We are the world’s oldest global law firm, but we are constantly reinventing ourselves.
Technological disruption, economic crises, political risk – the challenges facing the world’s biggest businesses have been the same throughout history. We know because we have been at their side for nearly three centuries, giving them the confidence to shape the future.
Samuel Dodd appointed attorney to the Bank of England. The bank is still a client today.
James William Freshfield, who started his working life as a teenage apprentice to a London watchmaker, becomes a partner. His adopted coat of arms includes the archangel Saint Michael, which we still use today.
The precursor firm of Bruckhaus Westrick Heller Löber is founded in Hamburg and builds a solid ‘Hanseatic’ shipping and trade practice and through that a public international law practice. In the 1890s Stegemann acted for the Imperial German Government on the international treaty between the German Empire and the UK to transfer Zanzibar and British and German interests in East Africa.
James William Freshfield (the younger) advises Prime Minister William Gladstone on the Succession Duty Act, an important inheritance tax development.
Freshfields’ international clients include the East Indian Railway Company, the Ottoman–Smyrna Railway Company, the Copiapó Mining Company of Chile, the East and West India Dock Company, Australia’s Peel River Land and Mineral Company and the National Bank of New Zealand.
Freshfields is heavily involved in a commission that meets throughout the 1930s at Rothschilds to deal with the fallout of the Credit-Anstalt collapse.
Old Freshfields Jewry offices destroyed by a WWII ‘doodlebug’ V-1 bomb. The firm moves to the Bank Buildings.
Alan Redfern is hired, the first litigator in what will become our world-leading DR practice.
Partners agree to move the focus from private clients to corporate law. The lockstep remuneration model is adopted. Freshfields is regularly involved in complex corporate transformations such as the bailout of Rolls-Royce.
Freshfields’ Asia presence is established with a Singapore office, followed by Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Our Brussels team’s work in Europe lays the foundation of our peerless ACT practice.
Bruckhaus Westrick Stegemann merges with Vienna-based Heller Löber Bahn & Partner to form Bruckhaus Westrick Heller Löber.
The Dubai office opens followed by the Bahrain office and the Abu Dhabi office over the next three years. Freshfields has been advising clients in the UAE since its establishment.
A snowballing global banking crisis sees our lawyers called on to address unprecedented restructuring and insolvency matters, and advise governments worldwide (including drafting over a single weekend new legislation for the German government).
The Global Centre opens in Manchester, UK, to ensure Freshfields stays ahead in a fast-changing world. Among its services is the Legal Services Centre, a lower-cost, high-quality alternative for process-oriented legal services.
With more than 270 years’ experience globally, Freshfields continues to help clients grow, strengthen and defend their businesses – building on its history of thinking ahead.