Thompson Coburn


Thompson Coburn LLP is a U.S. law firm.

Practice areas

Thompson Coburn is a law firm with more than 380 attorneys nationwide and offices in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C, Dallas, and Southern Illinois. The firm’s attorneys practice in more than 40 areas of the law and serve Fortune 500, mid-market and smaller clients on a national, regional and international basis. In 2012, Thompson Coburn was rated one of the top 13 law firms in the U.S. for client service. The firm has been especially active in the field of product liability. The firm also has practices in business litigation, class action, mergers and acquisitions, admiralty law, aviation, bankruptcy and restructuring, government contracts, intellectual property, labor law and employee benefits, environmental law, railroad law, corporate law, real estate and transportation.
Thompson Coburn attorneys serve Fortune 500, mid-market and smaller clients on a national, regional and international basis. The main headquarters are located in St. Louis, Missouri.

History

The firm was founded in 1929 and became known as Thompson Coburn in 1996 through the merger of two St. Louis firms, Thompson & Mitchell and Coburn & Croft. In July 2007 Thompson Coburn completed a merger with Fagel Haber of Chicago, giving the firm its first outpost in the Windy City. In December 2009 and January 2010, 10 attorneys from the Chicago law firm of Schain, Burney, Ross and Citron joined the firm, strengthening its client services in the area of Land Use Real Estate Law. In 2013 the firm launched its Lobbying & Policy Group. Also in 2013, the firm combined with Los Angeles-based Freedman Weisz LLP and opened an office in Los Angeles.

Notable Cases

Tom Minogue was appointed by Tom George, the Chancellor of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, to serve as chairman of the Chancellor’s Council of the University. The advisory board is composed of 50 civic and community leaders that counsel the Chancellor on issues of strategic, financial and legislative importance to the University.
In January 2015, the United States Olympic Committee appointed Ken Salomon to the organization’s ethics committee. Salomon replaces outgoing committee member Bill Ide of McKenna, Long & Aldridge as one of three independent representatives on the five-member committee.
In 2000, Thompson Coburn attorney Michael Lazaroff admitted that he had charged clients for "$380,651 worth of entertainment and gifts they believed were free", using falsified bills that inflated costs for telephone and fax charges, witness preparation and courier and legal services. The Associated Press reported that Lazaroff left Thompson Coburn and would surrender his law license. Thompson Coburn's chairman John Musgrave said that according to an independent audit, Lazaroff had improperly billed around 50 clients, and no other lawyer besides Lazaroff was involved in the billing irregularities.
In 2008, Union Planters Bank, then operating as Magna, filed a complaint against Thompson Coburn alleging negligence and breach of contract and seeking $11,789,053 from the firm, in an amendment to an earlier suit filed in 2003. Magna was eventually awarded $3,654,606.40 in damages by a Madison County Circuit Court jury. Both parties appealed, but the judgment was upheld by Fifth District Appellate Court justices in 2010.

Notable lawyers and alumni