Firm Profiles

Latham & Watkins always has a plan. Founded in Los Angeles by a pair of tax and labor lawyers during the Great Depression, the firm now has more than 2,000 lawyers spread across 31 offices. It was one of the first of the regional law firms to go national. Unlike many competitors, Latham solved its New York challenge early by absorbing much of the crumbling Mudge Rose firm and building the new outpost into the firm’s largest office. The firm proved nimble, surviving the death of core California clients and the colossal explosion of its largest client, Drexel Burnham; over time the Drexel diaspora became a rich source of new clients across the financial sector.

Latham has spent the last two decades becoming a global player: It’s now the tenth–largest on our Global 100 chart, building on its strengths in project finance, high–yield debt, and private equity. About 30 percent of its lawyers are outside the United States. With about 165 lawyers, London is the largest of the 19 non–U.S. offices.

Latham’s tone is famously collaborative and inclusive: Its associates committee has a say in partner promotions; proposed laterals jet from office to office on preoffer vetting missions. There is a fist inside the velvet glove, however. During the gory recessions of 1991 and 2008, Latham was among the first to fire associates. Despite the cuts, the firm consistently scores well on The American Lawyer’s annual Midlevel Associates Survey—lawyers particularly prize the firmwide training “academies.”

From the start of the Am Law 100 rankings in 1986, Latham has ranked in the top 20 on gross revenue and profits per partner. (Thirty percent of its revenue comes from litigation.) And the firm has been a fixture on The American Lawyer’s A–List, our ranking of elite firms based on revenue, pro bono effort, associate satisfaction, and lawyer diversity. The firm made a conscious decision to improve its pro bono record in the mid–1990s. As one partner put it: “Everyone here is an A student, not a C student. If [we’re] … going to do something, we need to put our trademark excellence on it.” Using goals, measurements, and encouragement from the top, the firm developed a top–flight pro bono operation. It now ranks twentieth in the nation on The American Lawyer’s annual pro bono roster. For Latham, it’s all part of executing another plan.

—Updated as of 1/1/12