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/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, Deutsche Telekom, Disney, Epic Games, the European Investment Bank, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Meta, 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 Frontier Communications, the largest pure-play fiber provider in the United States, in its pending $20 billion all-cash acquisition by Verizon.
• Cravath represented music producer Sherman Nealy in a U.S. Supreme Court victory affirming the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling that the Copyright Act entitles a copyright owner to obtain damages for any timely filed infringement claim, regardless of when the infringement occurred.   
• Cravath is representing Paramount’s special committee in the global media, streaming, and entertainment company’s pending $28 billion merger with Skydance Media.
• 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.  In a post-trial order, the court imposed a nationwide three‑year permanent injunction against Google.

• Firm of the Year; Competition, Energy, Media & Entertainment, Private Equity, Securities and Tax Practice Groups of the Year, 2024—Law360
• Litigation Department of the Year, 2024—New York Law Journal
• Cornerstone Awards Institutional Honoree, 2024—Lawyers Alliance for New York
• Antitrust Firm of the Year, 2025—Benchmark Litigation
• Best U.S. Law Firm (Gold Award), 2024—Leaders League