2024 DIVERSITY DATABASE PREMIUM SPONSOR Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP

With two centuries under its belt, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms. Cravath has settled on a lean-and-mean approach to world dominance with three strategically placed offices in New York, London, and Washington, DC.

Storied History, Market Leader

Cravath is one of the nation’s most storied law firms and has certainly made its mark. Firm founders Richard Blatchford and William Seward served in Lincoln’s administration, with Seward as his Secretary of State. The firm had its hand in representing famed abolitionist Horace Greeley and inventor Samuel Morse, organizing NBC for its original shareholders, and handling the famed 13-year antitrust lawsuit that began in 1969 for IBM.

Cravath is a market leader in salaries, bonuses, and hiring practices. Name partner Paul Cravath pioneered the modern associate-hiring approach (the hallmark “Cravath System”), which focuses on finding the best and brightest law school grads, paying them lockstep compensation, providing them with the highest caliber training, and promoting partners from within that group. The firm rarely hires lateral partners and has kept its attorney headcount relatively low. Through its unique rotation system, associates select one of the firm’s five practice areas and are then assigned to different partners or groups of partners through the system, a process that continues for their entire tenure as associates.

At the Top

Cravath is known as one of the most elite law firms and has a strong reputation for its work in antitrust, banking and credit, capital markets, corporate governance, executive compensation and benefits, general litigation, M&A, securities litigation, tax, trusts and estates, and white collar defense. Each of Cravath’s practice areas has an international component, and more than one-third of its clients are based outside the United States.

Cravath is a go-to firm for corporate matters—consistently ranking at the top of Vault’s Best Law Firms for General Corporate Practice. Its corporate lawyers train through a generalist model, gaining experience in banking and credit, capital markets, corporate governance, intellectual property, FIG, and financial restructuring and reorganization, and M&A.

Cravath’s corporate practice is matched by an equally lauded litigation practice that ranks among various Vault practice area rankings, including antitrust, general commercial litigation, appellate litigation, securities litigation, and white collar defense.

Cravath lawyers work in consumer products, energy, financial institutions, fintech, healthcare and life sciences, media, technology, and telecommunications—to name just a few. The firm’s clients have included Amgen, Bacardi, Brookfield, Deutsche Telekom, Disney, Epic Games, the European Investment Bank, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Meta, Robinhood, and Viatris.

Supporting Scholarship

Cravath sponsors the Cravath Scholars Program at Fisk University—one of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities—in Nashville, Tennessee. Through this program, the firm provides tuition assistance and summer internships to high-achieving undergraduate students. The firm and university have shared close ties since Fisk’s founding in 1866; Paul Cravath’s father—abolitionist Reverend Erastus Milo Cravath—was one of the institution’s founders and the first president of the university.

• Cravath is representing Endeavor’s special committee in the global sports and entertainment company’s pending $25 billion take‑private acquisition by Silver Lake.
• Cravath won a unanimous jury verdict in favor of Epic Games on all counts in its closely watched antitrust case against Google, determining—after a multiweek trial—that Google has engaged in anticompetitive behavior in the distribution of mobile apps and in the handling of in‑app payments.
• Cravath represented the Snyder family in its $6.05 billion sale of the Washington Commanders NFL team to a partnership led by Josh Harris, the largest deal ever for a professional sports team.
• Cravath and co-counsel A Better Childhood lead a pro bono class action on behalf of children in the New York City foster care system alleging systemic deficiencies in the system and seeking to remedy the ongoing violation of the children’s rights. We recently won a Second Circuit victory preserving the ability to seek certification of the putative class.

• Banking, Capital Markets, M&A and Tax “Practice Groups of the Year,” 2023—Law360
• “Antitrust Firm of the Year,” 2023—Benchmark Litigation
• “Pro Bono Publico Award,” 2023—The Legal Aid Society
• “Litigation Department of the Year” Finalist, 2023—The American Lawyer
• “Thomas L. Sager Award” Finalist, 2023—Minority Corporate Counsel Association