Firm Profiles

The 160–year–old Davis Polk & Wardwell made its name as counsel to J. Pierpont Morgan and the companies the legendary financier put on the map. It did the legal work that created General Electric, United States Steel (the largest company in history when it was formed in 1901), and Morgan Stanley & Co. Many decades later, it advised on J.P. Morgan & Co’s $38.6 billion merger with Chase Manhattan Bank (creating JPMorgan Chase & Co in 2000).

More recently, Davis Polk litigators were the go–to lawyers for financial institutions sued over the financial crisis. Its work in reducing the exposure for Bank of America Corporation, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup Inc. helped earn the firm an honorable mention in The American Lawyer’s 2012 Litigation Department of the Year contest. (It also earned honorable mentions in 2006 and 2010.) The U.S. government was another major client during the crisis, with Davis Polk serving as counsel to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Department of the Treasury in a series of multibillion–dollar transactions involving American International Group, Inc. (AIG).

Davis Polk has consistently placed, even during the downturn, in the top 15 in average partner compensation on our Am Law 100 rankings. It is one of the few transactional–heavy New York firms that saw an overall increase in its attorney rolls during the crisis. By other metrics, however, the firm fared less successfully. Drops in revenue–per–lawyer and profits–per–partner between 2007 and 2009 resulted in a respectable, but not spectacular, ranking on The American Lawyer’s Recession Performance Index (twenty–sixth out of 84 firms).

But better than average pro bono and midlevel satisfaction marks have helped put Davis Polk in the top ten on The American Lawyer’s A–List ranking (the firm placed ninth in 2011), and in September 2010 it was cited by The American Lawyer as having the highest percentage of women equity partners. Davis Polk may be an old–line firm, but it’s one that’s embracing a new generation.

—Updated as of 1/1/12