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/Capital Market, and White Collar Defense & Internal Investigations.

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, Disney, Epic Games, the European Investment Bank, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Meta, Pepsi, Robinhood, and Viatris.

Rotation Education

Cravath emphasizes its Rotation System for the development of associates through their legal career. Upon joining the firm, each associate chooses one of Cravath’s five departments. Within the department chosen, the associate is assigned to work with a partner or small group of partners for a set period. When the rotation with one partner or group of partners ends, associates rotate to work with a different partner (or group of partners) within the same department. Associates continue rotating in this way throughout their associate tenure. The firm believes that this unique rotation system quickly and thoroughly enables associates to handle any matter that arises within their practice area.

• Cravath is representing Paramount in its pending $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The companies have entered into a definitive merger agreement.
• Cravath won a Ninth Circuit victory unanimously affirming a jury verdict won by client Epic Games against Google in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California upholding the claim that Google engaged in illegal anticompetitive behavior in the distribution of mobile apps and in the handling of in‑app payments. The Ninth Circuit also unanimously affirmed the district court’s permanent injunction against Google.  
• Cravath is representing global health consumer leader Kenvue in its $48.7 billion acquisition by global personal care leader Kimberley-Clark in a cash and stock transaction.
• Cravath won a major victory following a three-week jury trial for American Express in class action antitrust litigation in which the jury unanimously found that Amex’s non-discrimination provisions do not unreasonably restrain trade—an important win that protects Amex’s business model.

• Antitrust Firm of the Year, 2025—Benchmark Litigation
• Law Firm of the Year (Litigation—Banking and Finance), 2025—Best Lawyers
• Competition Practice Group of the Year, 2025—Law360
• Chapter 11 Reorganization of the Year (Over $5B), 2025—The M&A Advisor
• Litigation Department of the Year, 2024—New York Law Journal