Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-nr592 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-10T04:39:36.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The New Place of Corporate Law Firms in the Structuring of Elite Legal Careers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2020

Ronit Dinovitzer  and
Bryant Garth
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For more than a century, a partnership position in a large corporate law firm has almost universally been held out as the singular mark of success for those with a law degree. We find that despite significant transformations in the profession, including dramatic expansion in size and the opening of corporate law positions to women, minorities, and the graduates of lower-ranked schools, the powerful and prestigious positions of corporate law partners remain largely reserved for those with the most elite credentials and other characteristics—male, white, wife at home—that defined law firm partners before the great period of change. By examining the continuity and change in the sorting of legal elites, we find evidence that the experience of a position in a corporate law firm now bestows advantages even for those who do not make partner. What was once deemed a failure—not making partner—is now a source of valued capital that leads to careers in in-house positions, boutique firms, the federal government, and a host of nonequity partner positions. We draw on thirteen years of lawyers’ career histories from the After the JD study, using the techniques of sequence analysis and qualitative interviews.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 339 - 371
Copyright
© 2020 American Bar Foundation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Abel, Bruce. “The Firms—What Do They Want?” Harvard Law Record 37, no. 9 (1963): 1–16.Google Scholar
Abel, Richard L. “United States: The Contradictions of Professionalism.” In Lawyers in Society, Vol. 1: The Common Law World, edited by Abel, Richard L. and Lewis, Philip S. C., 205–22. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Ashley, Louise, and Empson, Laura. “Differentiation and Discrimination: Understanding Social Class and Social Exclusion in Leading Law Firms.” Human Relations 66, no. 2 (2013): 219–44.10.1177/0018726712455833CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bidwell, Matthew, and Briscoe, Forrest. “The Dynamics of Interorganizational Careers.” Organization Science 21, no. 5 (2010): 1034–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair-Loy, Mary. “Career Patterns of Executive Women in Finance: An Optimal Matching Analysis.” American Journal of Sociology 104, no. 5 (1999): 1346–97.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loic J. D.. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Burk, Bernard A., and McGowan, David. “Big but Brittle: Economic Perspectives on the Future of the Large Law Firm in the New Economy.” Columbia Business Law Review 2011, no. 1: 1–117.Google Scholar
Carlin, Jerome E.Lawyers on Their Own: A Study of Individual Practitioners in Chicago. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Carson, Clara. The Lawyer Statistical Report: The U.S. Legal Profession in 2005, 2012. Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 2012.Google Scholar
Collins, Judith N. “Salaries for New Lawyers: An Update on Where We Are and How We Got Here.” NALP Bulletin, 2012. https://www.nalp.org/uploads/0812Research.pdf.Google Scholar
Cornwell, Benjamin. Social Sequence Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.10.1017/CBO9781316212530CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dinovitzer, Ronit, et al.After the JD: First Results of a National Study of Legal Careers. The NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education and the American Bar Foundation, 2004.Google Scholar
Dinovitzer, Ronit, et al.After the JD II: Second Results from a National Study of Legal Careers. The American Bar Foundation and the NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education (NALP), 2009.Google Scholar
Dinovitzer, Ronit, and Garth, Bryant G. “Lawyer Satisfaction in the Process of Structuring Legal Careers.” Law & Society Review 41, no. 1 (2007): 1–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elzinga, Cees H., and Studer, Matthias. “Spell Sequences, State Proximities, and Distance Metrics.” Sociological Methods & Research 44, no. 1 (2015): 3–47.Google Scholar
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs. Women in Law. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Faulconbridge, James R., and Muzio, David. “The Financialization of Large Law Firms: Situated Discourses and Practices of Reorganization.” Journal of Economic Geography 9 (2009): 641–61.10.1093/jeg/lbp038CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faulconbridge, James R., Beaverstock, Jonathan V., Muzio, Daniel, and Taylor, Peter J.. “Global Law Firms: Globalization and Organizational Spaces of Cross-Border Legal Work.” Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business 28, no. 3 (2008): 455–88.Google Scholar
Feldman, Adam. “Law Schools, Judges, and Government Attorneys.” 2017. https://empiricalscotus.com/2017/09/10/law-schools/.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, and Henderson, William. “The Elastic Tournament: A Second Transformation of the Big Law Firm.” Stanford Law Review 60, no. 6 (2008): 1867–1930.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, and Palay, Thomas. Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of the Big Law Firm. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Garth, Bryant G. “Notes on the Future of the Legal Profession in the United States: The Key Roles of Corporate Law Firms and Urban Law Schools.” Buffalo Law Review 65, no. 2 (2017): 287–328.Google Scholar
Garth, Bryant G., and Sterling, Joyce. “Exploring Inequality in the Corporate Law Firm Apprenticeship: Doing the Time, Finding the Love.” Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 22 (2009): 1361–94.Google Scholar
Gilson, Ronald J., and Mnookin, Robert H., “Coming of Age in a Corporate Law Firm: The Economics of Associate Career Patterns.” Stanford Law Review 41, no. 3 (1989): 567–95.10.2307/1228880CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Robert W. “The American Legal Profession, 1870-2000.” In The Cambridge History of Law in America, Vol. III., edited by Grossberg, Michael and Tomlins, Christopher, 73–126. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Gorman, Elizabeth H., and Kmec, Julie A.. “Hierarchical Rank and Women’s Organizational Mobility: Glass Ceilings in Corporate Law Firms.” American Journal of Sociology 114, no. 5 (2009): 1428–74.10.1086/595950CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Granfield, Robert. Making Elite Lawyers: Visions of Law at Harvard and Beyond. New York: Routledge, 1992.Google Scholar
Heinz, John P., and Laumann, Edward O.. Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Bar. Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1982.Google Scholar
Henderson, W. D. “An Empirical Study of Single-Tier versus Two-Tier Partnerships in the Am Law 200.” North Carolina Law Review 84, no. 5 (2006): 1691–1750.Google Scholar
Herrmann, Mark. “Inside Straight: How De-Equitizing Partners Can Undermine a Business Model.” Above the Law. 2011. https://abovethelaw.com/2011/05/inside-straight-how-de-equitizing-partners-can-undermine-a-business-model/.Google Scholar
Kay, Fiona, and Gorman, Elizabeth. “Women in the Legal Profession.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 4 (2008): 299–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kronman, Anthony T.The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1995.Google Scholar
Ladinsky, Jack. “Careers of Lawyers, Law Practice, and Legal Institutions.” American Sociological Review 28, no. 1 (1963): 47–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lat, David. “Breaking: NY To $180K!!! Cravath Raises Associate Base Salaries!!!” Above the Law. 2016. https://abovethelaw.com/2016/06/breaking-ny-to-180k-cravath-raises-associate-base-salaries/.Google Scholar
Leipold, James G., and Collins, Judith N.. “The Stories behind the Numbers: Jobs for New Grads over More than Two Decades.” NALP Bulletin, December 2016. http://www.nalp.org/1216research.Google Scholar
NALP. 2018 Report on in U.S. Law Firms Diversity (2018). https://www.nalp.org/uploads/2018NALPReportonDiversityinUSLawFirms_FINAL.pdf.Google Scholar
National Law Journal. “The Top 50 Go-To Law Schools.” 2017. http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202780534815.Google Scholar
Nelson, Robert L.Partners with Power: The Social Transformation of the Large Law Firm. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Payne-Pikus, Monique R., Hagan, John, and Nelson, Robert L.. “Experiencing Discrimination: Race and Retention in America’s Largest Law Firms.” Law & Society Review 44, no. 3–4 (2010): 553–84.10.1111/j.1540-5893.2010.00416.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritschard, Gilbert. “Package ‘TraMineRextras’.” 2019. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/TraMineRextras/TraMineRextras.pdf.Google Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A., and Tilcsik, András. “Class Advantage, Commitment Penalty: The Gendered Effect of Social Class Signals in an Elite Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 81, no. 6 (2016): 1097–1131.10.1177/0003122416668154CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Robert Eli. “The Inside Counsel Movement, Professional Judgment and Organizational Representation.” Indiana Law Journal 64 (1989): 479–553.Google Scholar
Schleef, Debra. “Jumping Ship or Merely Crossing the Aisle? An Analysis of the Circulation of Elite Lawyers.” In Networks, Work and Inequality, edited by McDonald, Steve, 387–414. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2013.10.1108/S0277-2833(2013)0000024017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smigel, Erwin O. “Recruiting the Wall Street Lawyer.” Transaction 1 (1964a): 21–25.Google Scholar
Smigel, Erwin O.The Wall Street Lawyer: Professional Organization Man? Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1964b.Google Scholar
Southworth, Ann, and Fisk, Catherine L.. The Legal Profession: Ethics in Contemporary Practice. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 2014.Google Scholar
Spector, Malcolm. “The Rise and Fall of a Mobility Route.” Social Problems 20 (1972): 173–85.Google Scholar
Studer, Matthias, and Ritschard, Gilbert. “What Matters in Differences between Life Trajectories: A Comparative Review of Sequence Dissimilarity Measures.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 179, no. 2 (2016): 481–511.Google Scholar
Swaine, Robert T.The Cravath Firm and Its Predecessors, 1819-1947. Clark, NJ: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2007.Google Scholar
Tan, David, and Rider, Christopher I. “Let Them Go? How Losing Employees to Competitors Can Enhance Firm Status.” Strategic Management Journal 38, no. 9 (2017): 1848–74.10.1002/smj.2630CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiser, Benjamin. “A Stepping Stone for Law’s Best and Brightest.” N.Y. Times, January 29, 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/nyregion/30southern.html.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David B. “The In-House Counsel Movement.” The Practice, 2016. https://thepractice.law.harvard.edu/article/in-house-counsel-movement/.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David B., and Gulati, G. Mitu. “Reconceiving the Tournament of Lawyers: Tracking, Seeding, and Information Control in the Internal Labor Market of Elite Law Firms.” Virginia Law Review 84 (1998): 1581–1682.Google Scholar
Note. “The Jewish Law Student and New York Jobs: Discriminatory Effects in Law Firm Hiring Practices.” Yale Law Journal 73, no. 4 (1964): 625–60.10.2307/794604CrossRefGoogle Scholar