The Anointed: New York's White Shoe Law Firms-How They Started, How They Grew, and How They Ran the Country

by Jeremiah Lambert, Geoffrey S. Stewart

Overview

This is the story of how and why such powerhouse Wall Street law firms as Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Davis Polk & Wardwell, and Sullivan & Cromwell, grew from nineteenth-century entrepreneurial origins into icons of institutional law practice; how, as white-shoe bastions with the social standards of an exclusive gentlemen’s club, they promoted the values of an east coast elite; and how they adapted to a radically changed legal world, surviving snobbish insularity and ferocious competition to remain at the pinnacle of a transformed profession.

It is no accident these firms are found in New York, the largest city in the world’s largest economy and also the nation’s largest port, principal banking center, and epicenter of industry. At the dawn of the twentieth century, linked by canals, railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, transatlantic steamships and undersea cables, New York became the economic nerve center of the United States. It also wielded formidable political power and supplied every President or Vice President of the United States between the Civil War and the Great War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493056330
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/16/2021
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,065,204
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jeremiah D. Lambert, a nationally recognized lawyer who has advised clients in the electricity and natural gas industries, also served as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Global Crossing Ltd. during that company’s Chapter 11 reorganization and thereafter as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of its post-bankruptcy successor. Mr. Lambert is the author of The Power Brokers, a narrative history of the electric utility industry in the United States published by MIT Press in 2015, How Deregulation Went Wrong (PennWell 2006), and Creating Competitive Power Markets: the PJM Model (PennWell 2001), among other books and publications. Mr. Lambert, a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars, commenced his legal career in New York City as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and later practiced as a co-founder of Peabody, Lambert & Meyers in Washington, D.C. and as a partner in several national firms. He is a graduate of Princeton University, a former Fulbright Scholar, and a graduate of Yale Law School. He is married to Sanda Kayden Lambert and resides in Palm Beach, Florida.

Geoffrey S. Stewart is a Washington-based lawyer who handles complex commercial and international litigation. He attended Brown University, where he received his A.B. (Honors) and A.M degrees in European history and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Stewart received his legal training at Harvard Law School and began his legal career at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and Washington, D.C. He served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy in 1982-83 and was Associate Counsel to the Office of Independent Counsel Iran/Contra from 1987 to 1991. Mr. Stewart was a partner of the firm Hale and Dorr from 1986 to 1999 and a partner of the firm Jones Day from 1999 to 2018. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his wife, Sandra Baker, who for many years produced the Diane Rehm Show, syndicated on National Public Radio.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The Past Remembered 7

2 An Ancient Rivalry 17

3 "Morgan's Attorney General" 21

4 Railroads and Railroad Reorganizations 35

5 The Age of Trusts and The Progressive Era 45

6 William Nelson Cromwell and The Panama Canal 57

7 Sullivan & Cromwell: An International Law Firm 67

8 The Cravath System and Cravath the Man 73

9 Early Cravath Alumni 79

10 Robert Swaine and Cravath's Reorganization Practice 89

11 The Creation of Davis Polk & Wardwell 95

12 John W. Davis' Law Firm 107

13 Sullivan & Cromwell and Opportunity in the Aftermath of War 119

The Advent of Regulation 135

15 Fighting the New Deal 145

16 The Dulles Brothers and the Postwar World 155

17 Tradition and Reform at Davis Polk 165

18 Back to the Future 173

Notes 185

Bibliography 207

Index 217

About the Authors 229

Editorial Reviews

01/25/2021

The growth of three prominent New York law firms reflects “major developments” in America’s “social and economic life” according to former attorneys Lambert and Stewart in this sharp if niche survey. The first “white shoe” law firms (named for the shoes wealthy men wore in the summer)—Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Davis Polk & Wardwell; and Sullivan & Cromwell—were “a WASP citadel” by mid-century, and functioned as a social club for the firms’ lawyers. The authors trace the firms’ history: the Civil War threatened Sullivan’s practice working with Southern clients, for example, and the firm’s late 19th century growth was fueled by its work in bankrutpcy law. They also outline how Cravath built policies around recruitment that influence law practices today, and describe Cromwell’s questionable dealings around the building of the Panama Canal. The authors turn the evolution of law over the century into a lively history, with accounts of fighting the New Deal and in-house disagreements over working with Nazis. Those looking for a shrewd inside take on elite law firms will find this brings the goods. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

The Anointed shows evidence of a great deal of research, and the subject is fascinating... The authors’ central (if implicit) point is a good one. The old era was ruled by loyalty and social connections. The profit motive that replaced it may have been crass, but it imposed a welcome regime of merit.

The Wall Street Journal

The one hundred and eighty-two pages rigorously researched book is loaded with insightful references that give readers a complete picture of the rise of the White-Shoe New York law firms and their immense influence on society.

Book Pleasures

Lambert ’59 and Stewart chronicle the rise of the nation’s most enduring law firms, all situated in Manhattan: Sullivan & Cromwell, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Davis Polk & Wardwell, and their ilk. The Anointed renders unsparingly the elite milieu in which the firms’ founders — white, male, Protestant, and well pedigreed — worked, lived, and strove with and against one another.

Yale Law Journal

The Anointed shows evidence of a great deal of research, and the subject is fascinating... The authors’ central (if implicit) point is a good one. The old era was ruled by loyalty and social connections. The profit motive that replaced it may have been crass, but it imposed a welcome regime of merit.

Wall Street Journal

The Anointed” shows evidence of a great deal of research, and the subject is fascinating... "The authors’ central (if implicit) point is a good one. The old era was ruled by loyalty and social connections. The profit motive that replaced it may have been crass, but it imposed a welcome regime of merit."-The Wall Street Journal

"The authors turn the evolution of law over the century into a lively history, with accounts of fighting the New Deal and in-house disagreements over working with Nazis. Those looking for a shrewd inside take on elite law firms will find this brings the goods."-Publishers Weekly

“The one hundred and eighty-two pages rigorously researched book is loaded with insightful references that give readers a complete picture of the rise of the White-Shoe New York law firms and their immense influence on society.”-BookPleasures.com

From the Publisher