About The Firm

What we’re really about

The art of representing people. It has become our firm’s highly recognized tagline. We live by these words and they guide all that we do. We consider the practice of law an art requiring the same attributes as a skilled artist—passion, skill, commitment, and persistence. We focus these attributes on the highest-quality representation—a word that might not even do justice to our level of engagement and partnership. We’re always aware that, even though we often work with large companies and international businesses, our clients are people who deserve our responsiveness and our respect.

Our sto­ry

We’ve been part of West­ern New York since 1852. Through our pri­vate and cor­po­rate clients, part­ners, asso­ciates, staff, and the local orga­ni­za­tions we help sup­port, this com­mu­ni­ty is tru­ly part of our firm. Now, more than 170 years lat­er, Woods Ovi­att Gilman has a nation­al and world­wide reach from our head­quar­ters in Rochester, New York; our offices in Buf­fa­lo, New York, and Albany, New York; and our col­leagues in Mer­i­tas, the pre­mier glob­al alliance of inde­pen­dent law firms.

Our clients

We rep­re­sent a broad spec­trum of clients, from pub­licly trad­ed cor­po­ra­tions and finan­cial insti­tu­tions to fam­i­ly-owned busi­ness­es and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als; from high-tech­nol­o­gy and indus­tri­al enter­pris­es to con­struc­tion firms; and from real estate devel­op­ers to edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions and charities.

Our work

We have grown to become a diverse firm large enough to meet the chal­lenges of a demand­ing and spe­cial­ized legal sys­tem — with­out los­ing focus on giv­ing our clients the per­son­al atten­tion they expect and deserve.