This is nothing new. Happened at my firm, Clifford Chance, more than two years ago, though the dial-in number took the listener directly to a "hot and wet" conference call.

But the schadenfreude effect is so much higher here. It's CRAVATH...

My whole firm was laughing...thanks!

I know the Associate, Roger, er, redacted. He claims it was a mistake, but then I wonder why the password WORKS!!! Stupid like a fox!

I am sure he will do fine at Cravath -- they have a very high tolerance for stupidity.

Cravath lawyers have done far worse things:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/396376p-335975c.html

I still remember a similar incident involving a local PI attorney's Yellow Book ad. The number listed was 1-800-938-2888.

Cravath Mistake, What do you mean, the password works?

10:08, Please note that guy was a tier 1 grad.

big deal. cut the guy a break -- perhaps the dial-in information he was given was faulty.

on the other hand, if he is already lonely and actually using this service, maybe he should think about a different career.

As last week’s story unfolded about James Colitton, the former Cravath, Swaine & Moore tax attorney facing lurid rape charges, several Law Blog readers were reminded of David Schwartz, the Cravath real estate partner violently murdered in 1992.

In the June 21, 1993, issue of The New Yorker, James Stewart — the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, former page-one editor at The Wall Street Journal, and ex-Cravath associate — wrote a story about Schwartz’s death titled, “Death of a Partner.” A request to The New Yorker to post the article on its Web site fell on deaf ears, but the Law Blog had kept a hard copy. Here’s the article’s introduction:

Abiding by the traditions of the “Cravath system,” the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore is a strict meritocracy that demands dedication and discretion from its partners, and David Louis Schwartz drove himself hard to fit that mold. Until he was murdered, no one knew about his dangerous hidden life.

The article opens with Schwartz’s funeral:

A large block of seats at the front of the sanctuary remained empty, enclosed by the velvet ropes. Then, as the organ swelled and the faint hush of whispered greetings among the mourners subsided, a procession entered from the rear. Marching two by two, uniformly clad in dark suits, ties, and white shirts, sixty partners of Cravath, Swaine & Moore marched slowly down the central aisle in a procession know as the Cravath walk — a tradition at the funeral of every Cravath partner. As they filled the front of the synagogue, their en-banc presence announced, as it had on so many occasions in the past, ‘A partner has died; the firm lives.’

“When the service was over,” wrote Stewart, “most Cravath partners appeared to be relieved that it had ended without further embarrassment to the firm.” Here’s why, wrote Stewart:

For the unspeakable facts were these: David Schwartz was murdered. He was killed in a sleazy Bronx motel. He was stabbed by a black eighteen-year-old male. He appears to have been leading a secret double life of clandestine and often dangerous sexual encounters. So far as can be determined, no one at Cravath and no one in his family had known.

At the time of his death, Schwartz was married with three children, all in their twenties. He owned a Park Avenue duplex, a home in Westport, Conn., and earned $2.5 million per year. “Still,” Stewart wrote, “wealth and status couldn’t disguise Schwartz’s personal problems, which were mounting.” According to Stewart, Schwartz had relationship problems with his son and had a variety of physical ailments. But, wrote Stewart,

Nothing that Schwartz did was more repugnant to others than a habit he developed that nearly everyone who knew him well mentions sooner or later. Schwartz would often take a paper clip, unwind it, and repeatedly jab a sharp end of the clip into his ear. He might do this at any time and on any occasion — while on the telephone, while meeting with other lawyers, even with clients. Some Cravath lawyers say they all but begged him to stop, but he brushed their concerns aside, saying the paper clips were harmless and he’d be careful. One day when [Cravath lawyers] were in Schwartz’s office, Schwartz became agitated as he discussed a pending negotiation. As he talked, he jabbed with increasing ferocity. Inevitably, the paper clip pierced his ear, drawing blood which ran down his neck and stained his shirt.

Stewart ends the story with a quote from Bill Dickey, a former Cravath partner who worked closely with Schwartz and grew up near him in the Bronx:

Not to be too Freudian about this but David died about a mile from where he and I grew up. This was an area David knew reasonably well. I always felt that it was safe; my mother used to go to the A. & P. there. I think David was hiding, and he was hiding in a place he was familiar with. It’s a sad thing that he had to hide, or that anyone has to hide.

The "Cravath walk"??!! Oh please, Mary!!

That place needs to get over itself. And stop hiring people with twisted dark sexual secrets.

Wachtell is now what Cravath thinks it is.

I wish I could do the Cravath walk. Too bad I'm tier 2.

GIVE THIS GUY A BREAK. I work at cravath so i know our universal dial in number, and he was only off by 1 digit. C'mon people.

Lghten up emma, this is really really funny.

lawyers do not set up their own conference calls, this guy had clearly pissed of his secretary and he/she found a way to get even.

It is interesting that everyone is giving this guy a hard time but no one seems to be concerned that a Davis Polk lawyer sent out an e-mail with confidential client information.

I work at cravath. It is actually pretty common for lawyers to setup their own calls.

I too work at Cravath.

1) It's common for CS&M attorneys to set up their own calls.

2) The phone sex number is actually only 1 digit off from the toll free number we're supposed to use, so this was a mistake in typing in the wrong number, not a mistake in giving out a wrong number that this person actually uses.

Even I can transpose a phone number -- fire this clown and hire a real law student!!

Given the dark secrets of Cravath attorneys this associate is well on the way to partnership. This is not funny, it is sad.

Cease and desist / 5:12 PM: Well you were the moron who put his real name out there (since it was redacted in the main post). You must really have it in for him.

I can't believe that Loyola 2L would allude to the possibility of working at Cravath, even as a joke. You are not even good enough for a Vault 100 firm, much less good enough for a Vault 20 firm, and that's to say nothing of the real top firms. Cravath is the very top. There are people who went to Harvard undergrad AND law and still can't get jobs at Cravath.

Loyola 2L complaining about not being good enough for Cravath is like a loser who can't join his small town's sports team and complains about not being picked for the Olympics.

Loyola 2L isn't even smart enough to navigate Cravath's website.

Loyola 2L is too much of an underachiever to even be a paralegal at Skadden, and he dares saying that he wishes he could take part in the Cravath walk?

He "may find himself in deep water with managment for embarrassing the firm."

For transposing one number on a stupid conference call dial-in email?

Remember this is the firm with the closeted partner found murdered by a hooker in the Bronx, and the firm where the ex-associate got busted last year for tricking with teens!!
And with the associate who was busted for insider trading who chewed and swallowed the evidence in his office!

Cravath is a walking Law and Order episode. Somehow I don't think this harmless incident counts as "embarassing."

Tier 2 people aren't underachievers. And I can navigate Cravath's complex website just fine thank you.

7 PM: Right on. People need to chill. This is amusing enough to serve as fodder for a gossip blog, but not serious enough to damage anyone's career. Relax, everyone.

For once, L2L is right. He isn't an underachiever - he's achieved exactly what he was supposed to.

Loyola2L is the blog equivalent of Paris Hilton or Anna Nicole, but without the charm.

The story should be about the person who forwared confidential information. If anyone's getting fired, it's undoubtedly him/her. I'm sure the partner for whom s/he is working is going to love receiving calls from Cravath and their client on Monday.

david, even though this is pretty harmless, that was really nice of you to redact the name.

I feel like it's important for this site to recognize that humiliating young lawyers for innocent mistakes isn't part of its "mission."

"You are not even good enough for a Vault 100 firm." Correction, I am not even "good enough" for an interview at a V100 firm.

Sure I could do the work better than most tier 1 graduates, but I'm shunned solely because of the rank of my law school.

Speaking of the Cravath walk, we have our own little walk at tier 2 schools.

You self assuredly promenade down to the mailbox, eager to see how many of your five hundred resume submission boar fruit.

You then walk back, shoulders down, carry ten rejection letters and a bill from Sallie Mae for $1,200.

By "boar," do you mean "bore" or maybe "have borne" fruit?

boar /bɔr, boʊr/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[bawr, bohr] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. the uncastrated male swine.

10:22 is right. It was considerate to redact the guy's name. Who thought a blog would be nicer than the MSM?

The Recorder mentioned the name of the associate who commited another recent boo-boo:

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/02/lawyer_of_the_day_m_todd_scott.php

So I guess David takes the weekends off these days... Lazy bloggers.

I think the humor of this story is exaggerated. It would be hilarious if it happened to someone I worked with. Still pretty funny if it happened within my firm. Funny if at a firm across the street. And now, at a firm in a different city, though - yes - Cravath, mildly humorous. I feel for the guy. This is such a simple and honest mistake. And now it, and his NAME for crissake's (good job, idiot commenters who didn't realize his name was redacted) are all over the internet. I hope your mistakes are never so widely publicized.

I also think the posting of M. Todd's picture was over the top. Again, a horrible, cringe-worthy mistake, but it's adding insult to injury to add the photo.

Finally, of course the associate posted details of the conference call. It's a standard number and PIN. If an associate relied on a secretary to set up all of his conference calls, I'd say he's lazy. Such reliance on secretaries gives rise to partners who can't work a copy machine or fax machine. Heaven forbid your secretary is not around when you need something...

Did anyone else see Lattman's brazen attempt to steal the L2Ls from ATL? The L2Ls are ATL's property Lattman, hands off!
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/02/23/good-times-for-2ls/

2:32 is NOT the real L2L. I'm not smart enough to navigate Cravath's website. I got stuck on "Career Information." I assume it's because Cravath has an IP filter which blocks out tier 2 grads.

2:41 is an imposter! I am not that dumb..or maybe I am arguing with myself? Or maybe there is one than out of work Loyola student in the top 11%

Frontier (the sex line owner) is wondering what the hell happened? Imagine the boost to revenues a bunch of pathetic, lonely lawyers with money would be to a sex line!

This post is much ado about nothing.

Not funny.

The associate made a harmless error.

Who knew? Corporate lawyers are easily amused. You need to get out more, guys.

What's the point of redacting someone's last name, when there is only one associate at Cravath with that person's first name.

5:46: The guy's first name didn't appear in the original post - it was also redacted. It was a commenter who dropped his first name. And another commenter who mentioned his full name.

confidentiallity is right. If anyone should be skewered for this, it is the DPW idiot you forwarded the email and allowed the email to be re-forwarded to the rest of the world. The recipients list alone is clearly confidential info that shouldn't have been forwarded.

The reason why the initial email was so embarrassing is because Cravath associates are expected to uphold higher standards than their counterparts at other firms. Cravath has little tolerance for fools (as evidenced by their prompt firing of the various associates involved in sex and other legal scandals). If a Cravath associate had forwarded the initial email, of course that would be a huge deal, but this is a moot point here.

I recently did a deal with Cravath where they were on the same side of the deal as my client - and I have to say I was very very impressed by their diligence and competence. I was also horrorfied by the hours they put in - I would routintley get emails and calls from them after 1 am. It was really something.

there is no confidential information in the Cravath email. The only substance of the email was a dial-in for a drafting. It does not even list a deal and a list of email addresses is hardly confidential.

Never were the lawyers more relaxed, the office doors more tightly shut, and the wives more relieved, than by 3pm on that fateful February Wednesday.

So what billing code does one use for phone sex?

Am I the only person from Cravath that is not going to defend this moron? What an idiot -- he should be fired! Trivial? I have seen people fired for LESS!

Why couldn't the email list be confidential? Were there any email addresses from the corporate clients in it? You could certainly figure out the parties to a transaction if there were.

can you please tell me if this associate was named thad pitney?

wow, sorry thad. i didn't mean to hit a sore spot.

wow, sorry thad. i didn't mean to hit a sore spot.

Re: the Cravath dial-in snafu, does anyone know what (if anything) happened to the associate? Did he get yelled at? Or did they just laugh it off?

Poor guy. Anyone remember Mary Callahan and her email screw up five years ago? She managed to keep her job so hopefully this associate will be fortunate too.

of course he didn't get in trouble - it was an accident. it was the associate at davis polk that intentionally did something wrong - and got in trouble.