Jack Walker, the retired managing partner of Latham & Watkins, likes to tell a story about Clint Stevenson, his predecessor and one of our 50 innovators. In the early 1960s, Stevenson was interviewing a 3L for an associate slot at his Los Angeles firm.
"Clint told him that this little 20-person law firm was going to expand regionally, nationally, and internationally," Walker recalls. "The guy looked at Clint and concluded that he was unbalanced." The 3L went to another California firm, while Stevenson became Latham's managing partner in 1967 and brought his vision to life: first, a second floor in their Los Angeles building, then offices in Orange County, Washington, New York, and Chicago. "He was a genius," Walker says about Stevenson. "He really saw stuff happening and understood how the world would roll out."
