Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Most Prestigious of All?

Each year, just in time for fall on-campus recruiting season, Vault releases its prestige rankings of the nation’s biggest law firms. Here’s a report on the results of the latest survey, from The Recorder:

In big law, prestige is important. And an annual survey from career-oriented Web site Vault attempts to gauge just how impressive it is to work at the country’s top firms by asking more than 15,000 associates to rank their prestige factor.

The top ten firms were: Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Sullivan & Cromwell; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Davis Polk & Wardwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton; Latham & Watkins; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Executive summary: New York firms rule the roost. Nothing new there.
But lawyers at Latham & Watkins, based out in La-la-land, were happy with their top 10 finish:

“It’s certainly important and it is impressive that Latham has the reputation it has,” said Kimberly Posin, a fourth-year associate in Latham’s Los Angeles office. “Clients look to and appreciate the prestige factor.”

It’s also a key factor for law students who are interviewing at various firms and scouring the rankings to help make decisions, she said.

Within the firm itself, it was fun to get the e-mail detailing the results.

“It’s something that’s nice to talk about,” Posin said, “[to] call our friends at competing firms and say ‘Look at this.'”

Calling your friends to brag about how your firm is more prestigious than their firm? Isn’t that a tad obnoxious, Kimberly?
Top 100 Law Firms [Vault]
Associate Survey Finds NY Firms Win Bragging Rights [The Recorder]

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