In the United States, white-shoe firm is a term used to describe prestigious professional services firms that have been traditionally associated with the upper-class elite who graduated from Ivy League colleges. (The term comes from white buckskin derby shoes (bucks), once the style among the men from the upper-class.) The term is most often used to describe leading old-line law firms and Wall Street financial institutions, as well as accounting firms that are over a century old, typically in New York City and Boston. [1] As Ivy League elites, it implied that there was also a cultural homogeneity associated with White Anglo-Saxon Protestant men, but the term is now used more as a matter of long-established, high-end firms, especially those working in complicated business matters.
Former Wall Street attorney John Oller, author of White Shoe, credits Paul Drennan Cravath with creating the distinct model adopted by virtually all white-shoe law firms, the Cravath System, just after the turn of the 20th century, about 50 years before the phrase white-shoe firm came into use. [2]
The phrase derives from "white bucks", laced suede or buckskin (or Nubuck) derby shoes, usually with a red sole, long popular among the student body of Ivy League colleges. [3] A 1953 Esquire article, describing social strata at Yale University, explained that "White Shoe applies primarily to the socially ambitious and the socially smug types who affect a good deal of worldly sophistication, run, ride and drink in rather small cliques, and look in on the second halves of football games when the weather is good." [4] The Oxford English Dictionary cites the phrase "white-shoe college boys" in the J.D. Salinger novel Franny and Zooey (1957) as the first use of the term: [5] "Phooey, I say, on all white-shoe college boys who edit their campus literary magazines. Give me an honest con man any day." [6] It also appears in a 1958 Fortune article by Spencer Klaw, which describes some firms as having "a predilection for young men who are listed in the Social Register. These firms are called 'white-shoe outfits', a term derived from the buckskin shoes that used to be part of the accepted uniform at certain eastern prep schools and colleges." [7]
The term originated in Ivy League colleges and originally reflected a stereotype of old-line firms that were populated by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs). The term historically had antisemitic connotations, as many of the New York firms known as white-shoe were considered inaccessible to Jewish lawyers until the 1960s. [5] [8] The phrase has since lost some of this connotation, but is still defined by Princeton University's WordNet as "denoting a company or law firm owned and run by members of the WASP elite who are generally conservative". [9] Most white-shoe firms also excluded Roman Catholics. [10] [11] [12] [13] A 2010 column in The Economist described the term as synonymous with "big, old, east-coast and fairly traditional." [14] In the 21st century, the term is sometimes used in a general sense to refer to firms that are perceived as prestigious or high-quality; it is also sometimes used in a derogatory manner to denote stodginess, elitism, or a lack of diversity. [5]
The following U.S. firms are often referred to as being white-shoe firms:
The current Big Four accounting firms and the former Big Eight auditors from which they merged:
The only former Big Eight firm not merged into one of the Big Four was Arthur Andersen, which went out of business in 2002 after the Enron scandal.
The Big Three (management consultancies), colloquially known as "MBB", consisting of the largest management consulting firms by revenue:
While the term "white-shoe" historically applied only to those law firms populated by WASPs, usage of the term has since been expanded to other top-rated prestigious firms. Many of these firms were founded as a direct result of the exclusionary tendencies of the original white-shoe firms, which provided limited opportunities for Jewish and Catholic lawyers, as well as other non-WASPs, and include:
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans of British descent, who are generally part of the white dominant culture or upper-class and historically often the Mainline Protestant elite. Historically or most consistently, WASPs are of British descent, though the definition of WASP varies in this respect. WASPs have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. Critics have disparaged them as "The Establishment". Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s, the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics, and philanthropy.
King & Spalding LLP is an American multinational corporate law firm that is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with offices located in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It has over 1,300 lawyers in 23 offices globally. It is Am Law 100, Global 30, and white-shoe firm.
Swiss Bank Corporation was a Swiss investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. Prior to its merger, the bank was the third largest in Switzerland, with over CHF 300 billion of assets and CHF 11.7 billion of equity.
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other matters in which legal advice and other assistance are sought.
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP is an American white-shoe law firm with its headquarters in New York City, and additional offices in London and Washington, D.C.
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP is a white-shoe law firm based in New York City. It is the city's oldest law firm and one of the oldest continuously operating legal practices in the United States. Attorney John Wells founded the practice in 1792. Cadwalader's Lower Manhattan headquarters is one of five offices in three countries. In 2022, the firm had approximately 400 attorneys.
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is an American white-shoe law firm in New York City. While many peer law firms have grown and become international brands, Wachtell has only a single, Manhattan office. It is one of the smallest firms in the AmLaw 100, but has the highest per partner profits of any law firm and pays significantly above the "Cravath scale" market rate for associates.
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is an American multinational white-shoe law firm headquartered on Sixth Avenue in New York City. The firm maintains an all-equity partnership, with approximately 242 partners.
"Magic Circle" is an informal term describing the five most prestigious London-headquartered multinational law firms, which generally outperform the rest of the London law firms on profitability. The term has also been used to describe the most prestigious barristers' chambers in London. All of the 'Magic Circle' law firms and barristers' chambers specialise primarily in corporate law.
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, commonly known as Davis Polk, is a white-shoe, international law firm headquartered in New York City with offices in Washington, D.C., Palo Alto, London, Madrid, Brussels, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, and São Paulo. The firm maintains an all-equity partnership, with profits per partner of over $7 million.
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, also known as Hale & Dorr and WilmerHale, is an American multinational law firm with offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Co-headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Boston, it was formed in 2004 through the merger of the Boston-based firm Hale and Dorr and the D.C.-based, firm Wilmer Cutler & Pickering. It employs more than 1,000 attorneys worldwide.
Winston & Strawn LLP is an international law firm headquartered in Chicago. It has more than 900 attorneys spread across ten offices in the United States and six offices in Europe, Asia and South America. Founded in 1853, it is one of the largest and oldest law firms in Chicago.
The Silver Circle is a group of elite corporate law firms headquartered in London that has evolved significantly as the UK legal market has been affected by globalisation and mergers. The law firms generally described by The Lawyer magazine as comprising the Silver Circle were historically Ashurst, Herbert Smith, Macfarlanes, SJ Berwin and Travers Smith.
Paul Drennan Cravath was a prominent American corporate lawyer and presiding partner of the New York law firm known today as Cravath, Swaine & Moore. At the firm, he devised and implemented the Cravath System, which has come to define the structure and practice of most large American firms.
Bruce Ditmas Bromley was an American lawyer and politician.
A derby is a style of boot or shoe characterized by quarters, with shoelace eyelets, that are sewn on top of the vamp. This construction method, also known as "open lacing", contrasts with that of the Oxford shoe.
The Cravath System is a set of business management principles first developed at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. John Oller, author of White Shoe, credits Paul Drennan Cravath with creating the model in the early 20th century, which was adopted by virtually all white-shoe law firms, fifty years before the phrase white shoe came into popular use. The Cravath System has been adopted by many leading law firms, strategy consulting agencies, and investment banks in the United States.
C. Allen Parker is an American business executive and attorney. He was the senior executive vice president and general counsel of Wells Fargo, and also served as its interim CEO and president. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Parker was a partner at New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, and served as its fifteenth presiding partner.
Faiza J. Saeed is an American attorney in the field of mergers and acquisitions, and the presiding partner of law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
The history of the American legal profession covers the work, training, and professional activities of lawyers from the colonial era to the present. Lawyers grew increasingly powerful in the colonial era as experts in the English common law, which was adopted by the colonies. By the 21st century, over one million practitioners in the United States held law degrees, and many others served the legal system as justices of the peace, paralegals, marshals, and other aides.