2024 DIVERSITY DATABASE UNDERWRITER Latham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins is one of the world’s largest law firms. With more than 3,500 attorneys in 14 countries around the world, Latham practices in all the major jurisdictions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and regularly represents companies doing business in Latin America and Africa. The firm is a global leader in corporate transactions, environmental law, finance matters, litigation and trial, and tax services.

Small Shop Gets Super-Sized

Dana Latham—former commissioner of the IRS—and Paul Watkins founded the firm in 1934 to focus on tax and employment law. In the latter part of the 20th century, the firm began aggressively and steadily expanding around the globe. The firm’s largest office is its New York location, an iconic space on Avenue of the Americas. Despite its sprawling footprint, Latham has long disavowed the notions of headquarters and “satellite” offices, with the firm proudly touting its “one firm” culture. Latham extends this cultural ideal in a truly unique way: It includes an equal number of partners and associates on its Associates Committee, which plays a central role in the firm’s evaluation and promotion process as well as in determining associate compensation and other policy issues.

Wide-Ranging Experiences

Junior associates at Latham are part of the firm’s Unassigned Program and can experience assignments across practice areas—which include multiple top-ranked practices. In Vault’s recent Practice Area rankings, the firm placed in an impressive 25 areas. Latham’s recognized practices are wide-ranging and include everything from environmental law and project finance, healthcare, and securities to intellectual property and white collar defense.

Just because juniors are unassigned doesn’t mean that they have no direction; the firm offers extensive training at all levels. First years are trained through the firm’s core curriculum, which focuses on practical lawyering skills such as legal research, persuasive writing, contract drafting, practice management, document review, and due diligence. The firm also offers training academies to support attorneys at all levels, from summer associate through partner, that take place over several days and cover skills including trial advocacy, contract drafting, communications, and leadership.

Perks for Parents

In addition to the firm’s generous parental leave policies (up to 26 weeks of paid leave for delivering parents; 22 weeks of paid leave for parents who welcome children via adoption, surrogacy, or gestational carrier; and 14 weeks of paid leave for other parents), Latham helps new parents transition into and out of parental leave through its PRO-RATA “pace reduction” program that allows reduced hours for six months prior to taking and after returning from leave. The firm’s new Parent Career Connection program also supports parents through individual and group coaching, enhanced leave of absence support, and tailored connections with other parent lawyers. In addition, the firm ensures that bonus-eligible associates on paid leave (including all paid family leave offerings) receive 100% credit toward their annual hourly budget (and related bonus) for up to 26 weeks in a calendar year. Moreover, Latham parents who travel for business can take advantage of breast milk shipping from the birth mother or surrogate to the child’s home, and this resource is also available to the spouses and domestic partners of Latham attorneys who don’t have access to a similar program through their employers. Benefits-wise, the firm offers reimbursement for surrogacy, adoption, and donor egg/sperm assistance to all eligible colleagues—as well as medical plan coverage—for fertility and advanced reproductive assistance (including egg and sperm freezing) for those who choose to enroll.

The perks for parents don’t stop there. They include parent and caregiver support including backup child care, preferred enrollment and free registration for child care centers, premium membership to a self-directed online resource for sourcing local in-home care, and nanny placement services. Parents can also access discounted tutoring and test prep services, as well as enrichment programs and camps for several age groups. No wonder the firm has been recognized as one of Seramount’s (formerly Working Mother’s) Best Law Firms for Women for more than 10 years.

• Latham represented Reddit, Airbnb, and Rivian Automotive in their landmark initial public offerings and pioneered direct listings, first for Spotify in 2018, followed by Slack, Warby Parker, and Coinbase, among others.
• Two sports-focused M&A deals exemplify Latham’s reach and industry acumen: Endeavor’s $21+ billion merger of the UFC and WWE.
• A multidisciplinary trial team successfully defended the U.S. Soccer Federation against a high-profile antitrust lawsuit, persuading a New York federal jury to find entirely for our client in a case where more than $1 billion and nothing short of the future of professional soccer in the United States had been at stake.
• Latham litigators secured a complete trial victory in a derivative lawsuit on behalf of Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Safra Catz in one of the largest acquisitions, $9.4 billion,— to face a stockholder challenge through trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

• For the 22nd consecutive year, Latham was named to Am Law’s exclusive A List, 2024—The American Lawyer
• Named Law Firm of the Year and Practice Group of the Year in Capital Markets, Cybersecurity & Privacy, Fintech, Life Sciences, M&A, and Private Equity, 2024—Law360
• Latham amassed the most practice and individual rankings for the 10th consecutive year, 2024—Chambers USA
• Latham advised on more billion-dollar deals than any other law firm in 2024—The American Lawyer
• Latham leads all law firms advising on the most significant PE deals of 2024—Bloomberg Law