Foley & Lardner
International Law Firm
Foley & Lardner LLP (often referred to simply as "Foley") is an international law firm headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded in 1842, it was ranked 45th by revenue on The American Lawyer's 2025 AmLaw 100 rankings of U.S. law firms, with $1.28 billion gross revenue in 2024.
History
The oldest and largest law firm in Wisconsin, it was established in 1842 as Finch & Lynde. Its founders were Asahel Finch Jr., a Republican and former Michigan state representative, and William Pitt Lynde, a Democrat who later served in the United States House of Representatives, the Wisconsin state legislature, and as mayor of Milwaukee. By 1970 the firm was beginning to grow substantially, and in 2001, after absorbing firms in Chicago and Washington, D.C., it was the 11th-largest firm in the United States.
In 1969 the firm adopted the name Foley & Lardner LLP and launched a succession of acquisitions to become a national law firm. The name refers to two name partners, both corporate lawyers: Leon Foley and Lynford Lardner Jr. Both Leon Foley and Lynford Lardner are credited with launching the law firm's large national expansion. Foley, who acted as a strategist in the development of Aurora Health Care System, which would become Wisconsin’s largest healthcare provider, died at 83 in 1978. Lardner, who also served as the president of the United States Golf Association, died after drowning in the Milwaukee River.
The public source identifies “Foley & Lardner” as international Law Firm. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Foley, Lardner and International.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5464319. VIAF identifies the subject as 129148544. The Library of Congress control number is n92055386. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1842, 2025, 2024 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Foley & Lardner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.