Houston-based Susman Godfrey doesn’t do things in understated ways—not in the way it throws a party or the way it pays its associates.

At its annual holiday party in its New York office this month, the firm hired celebrity chef Daniel Boulud to personally cater the event. (Boulud is a culinary legend whose flagship restaurant Daniel was awarded three Michelin stars in 2010, though it has since lost one of the stars.) Besides fussing over canapÉs in the firm’s kitchen, Boulud mingled with guests and posed for selfies with his numerous gastronomical groupies.