Cravath, Swaine & Moore

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP ("Cravath") is arguably the most prestigious law firm in the United States. Based in New York City with an additional office in London, Cravath has been in existence since 1819.

The firm stems from two predecessor firms, one in New York City and one in Auburn, New York. In 1854 these firms merged to form the firm of Blatchford, Seward & Griswold. Name partner William Seward later served as both governor of and a senator from New York, then became Secretary of State under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. In 1867, he negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in a transaction contemporaries derisively called "Seward's Folly". Paul Drennan Cravath joined the firm in 1899. He instituted the "Cravath System", a rigorous training program for associates which rotates them among the firm's partners within a given practice area. After a series of name changes, the Cravath, Swaine & Moore name was made permanent in 1944.

Since the beginning, Cravath has represented paragons of business and industry, ranging from Samuel F.B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, to corporate titans such as IBM, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and CBS. It also performed the legal work necessary to form NBC. More recent decades have seen Cravath represent Netscape in its antitrust suit against Microsoft, resulting in a $750 million settlement; several merger and acquisition deals, such as the Ford-Jaguar merger and the Bristol-Myers-Squibb merger; and two famed libel suits: defending Time Inc. against Israeli General Ariel Sharon, and also defending CBS against U.S. Army General William Westmoreland.

The firm is well-known for hiring associates straight from law school; lateral hires are quite rare. Cravath appears regularly on the American Lawyer's annual listing of highest profits per partner, generally second only to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a New York City firm specializing in corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Perhaps the best-known attorney associated with Cravath is David Boies, who was a partner from 1973 to 1977, and again from 1980 to 1997. He left in 1997 to form his own firm, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. Boies represented Vice President Al Gore in the Florida vote count in the 2000 Presidential election.