About Us

The Goodwin story began with a chance encounter on a Boston sidewalk. After some friendly conversation, two young lawyers, former classmates from college, decided to start their own law practice.

An eavesdropper on State Street that late spring morning in 1912 might have been amused at their bravado as Robert Eliot Goodwin and Joseph Osborne Procter, Jr. mapped their professional future. But the firm they forged would flourish, setting the foundation of a professional enterprise that would grow beyond anything either might have imagined.

Today, nearly 2,000 Goodwin lawyers focus on building authentic, long-term relationships with our clients, who are some of the world’s most successful and innovative investors, entrepreneurs and disruptors at the convergence of and within the life sciences, private equity, real estate, technology, and financial industries.

Our Global Operations Team (all business professionals) partners with our lawyers and clients across multiple business of law functions, providing for a truly unique and differentiated client service model.

Our immersive understanding of our clients’ industries – combined with our expertise across high-stakes litigation and dispute resolution, world-class regulatory compliance and advisory services, and complex transactions – sets us apart.

Our core principles are our foundation. They ground us and bind us together as a firm. Our commitment to these values is what drives us and what enables our success.