Has Cravath hired dozens and dozens of laterals that aren’t qualified/barred in their office jurisdiction?
Solid firm. Followed the Baker scale this year for bonuses which tells you they’re at least staying with market for the time being. Hopefully they can figure things out long term.
Many firms hired a bunch of foreign trained lawyers who mostly are bad
I’ve not had that experience with the foreign-trained lawyers with whom I’ve worked. Just need to work with them on the right stuff; comparative advantages and all that. There are things they’re better at than I am and vice versa.
As for Cravath, I don’t have direct experience - all I know is pretty much what the above poster already said, that they seem to be holding their own, and at least they followed Baker this year.
Had similar experience with Cravath on a current deal. Feels like all their junior associates are either foreign trained and/or not barred in their jurisdiction. Doesn’t really affect the deal at all but just odd.
Why are people so obsessed with Cravath? Serious question. None of the top students at my school (T14) targeted it. The best lit-focused students went to firms with established DC offices or to lit boutiques after finishing their clerkships. And the transactional folks gunned for Wachtell. I literally don’t know a single person who specifically sought a job at Cravath. And I know quite a few people who had Cravath offers, but turned them down to go to places like Davis Polk, Latham, or S&C instead. The only people at my law school who seemed to think of Cravath as special were the older professors. Did Cravath pay above market like Wachtell back in the day or something? Genuinely don’t understand the obsession with this place.
Ouchie, no callback?
Not the guy above but I also don’t quite understand the obsession with Cravath and very few people from my T14 that I know of are going there. DC firms and firms like P,W and GDC are much more popular with the lit-gunning top-of-the-class types. I also don’t get the attraction of Cravath; it has the reputation of a firm that makes associates work way more hours than other places but also pays associates market. Sounds miserable to me.
It’s reputational inertia given its history.
A lot of older people also think of Shearman as a great firm for similar reasons.
Yep, to expand:
Cravath also, like Wachtell, used to have a sort of mystique to it. They compensated partners purely on tenure, didn’t hire laterals, only had two offices, did major SCOTUS and other era-defining work, and paid at the tippy top of the market. Now, they aren’t pure lockstep for partner compensation, were rumored to have been looking to hire a lateral recruiting manager a year or two ago (and definitely take laterals now in more than just specialist groups), opened a DC office, rarely every do major SCOTUS and era-defining work and instead just do major deals and high dollar commercial litigation like most highly profitable shops, and offer both an associate and partnership compensation structure that is on par with or lags a dozen or so other firms.
Cravath is a great firm, but it’s slowly bowing to the pressures of the industry and becoming increasingly indistinguishable from many other firms.
Interesting, I haven’t heard of lateral associates in non-specialist groups. I know they took on Portilla and quite a few ex-federal officials as partners, but people I know at the firm say lateral hiring at the associate level is still confined to ECEB. Are people actually getting hired into general corporate/litigation now?
Yes, I’ve seen at least one. Lateraled from a another V5/V10, if I recall correctly.
Associate lateral recruiting doesn’t really work out for them. They seem to only be interested in attracting midlevel/senior talent from other top tier firms, and their environment is way too restrictive / stuffy for such lateral hires.
Cravath is extremely big on facetime, and in general don’t let associates get the exposure and career advancement most good midlevels want and seek. For example, they just started listing their associates on the firm website like this year or maybe the last. Prior to that, only partners were listed on the website - it’s just a firm that’s geared towards the partners wishes to run the firm the way they want.
I know 4-5 associates who had offers to lateral to Cravath (mix of litigation, restructuring and 1 corporate), and each one of them turned Cravath down for other firms. All of those associates were fellow V5 associates who were well regarded at their firm. Most of them chose firms that are ranked lower than Cravath, and often several tiers lower. If you’ve already been at a V5 for 3-5 years, you don’t really need a brand name for your resume anymore. You’re usually looking for something more substantial than just name recognition (i.e. better WLB, leadership roles, partnership prospects, prospect of building out a practice area for a firm/office, etc.) Cravath just can’t or won’t give you any of those things. They’re also too stubborn or prideful to reach below the V5 for midlevel talent.
On the flip side, every lateral I’ve met who left from Cravath has been extremely happy with their decision to leave for all the reasons stated above (or at least they represented as much to me, which I admit they would have reasons to hide their displeasure from a fellow associate at their new firm / former classmate).
I think their whole mantra of “we don’t hire laterals” has turned into “we can’t hire laterals”.
It’s already happened.
And that was a strategic failure on their part. You’re not going to suddenly compete with the Lathams and Kirklands of the world so why not at least keep your unique stick up the ass “we’re special and different” culture like Williams & Connolly in DC.
Well, and at least Williams & Connolly is actually elite, so they can pull this off. Take ten random lit associates from Cravath and put them next to ten random lit associates from Williams & Connolly, and the huge gap in credentials and clerkships is immediately apparent. The reason people find Cravathers so unbearable is that they act like they’re special when everyone knows they’re not. People like to rag on Kirkland (me included), but at least Kirkland is smashing every other firm in terms of profits. What has Cravath accomplished recently to distinguish itself from the morass of indistinguishable NYC corporate shops other than its dumb pretentiousness?
Sorry you cant handle Cravath’s blinding prestige.
Cravath and S&C seem like the same thing at this point, no? Both have 500 person NYC offices, have “generalist” approaches, and work you harder than peer firms while paying you the same
Yup, and S&C is similarly overrated.
Davis Polk seems in this bucket too lol