The final round of Above The Law’s 2009 March Madness for Law Firms was actually more exciting than the final round of the NCAA tournament.
While UNC routed Michigan State, Wachtell and Williams & Connolly were competing in a fierce battle for the title of Biglaw’s safest firm — the place where you are least likely to be laid off.
New York-based Wachtell (the #1 Vault seed) was leading early on in the day, but D.C.-based Williams & Connolly (V14) took the lead in the polls in the afternoon, and refused to let go.
When the buzzer sounded at midnight last night, WillConn claimed victory, 51.5 to 48.5.
According to ATL readers, Williams & Connolly is Biglaw’s Safest Firm, baby!!! **Out of the top 32 in the Vault prestige rankings
It’s a good time to be a small, streamlined firm in Washington, D.C., tight with the leading politicos. We congratulate the attorneys at Williams & Connolly on their job security prospects.
See the brackets and the explanations behind readers’ voting after the jump.
So why did ATL readers choose Williams & Connolly as a safer firm than Wachtell? Here’s what folks had to say in the comments. Some offer better reasoning than others.
W&C is clearly the safest in this economy. They don’t do transactional work at all and the flood of white collar prosecution will keep them super busy.
Truly prestigious firms don’t have summer associate Facebook groups. They wreak of insecurity and self-consciousness. Since WLRK has a group where everyone was made an admin and W&C tastefully has none the clear winner here is WillConn.
One big thing that shouldn’t be overlooked when thinking about which firm is “safest”: Wachtell is a firm that operates in the very cut-throat environment of M&A, and has huge partner profits to show for it. Do you really think partners there aren’t above cutting associates to maintain sky-high profits — just like the very clients whose deals they work on? They know business, and they know that businesses sometimes lay off people when they’re unnecessary. Kill or be killed.
Contrast this with W&C, which, while bare-knuckles in the courtroom, is known for being very non-business-like in its approach to management — making more partners than most firms and spreading the wealth more evenly among everyone (even if this lowers partner profits on average). It also operates in the let’s-be-sensitive-to-everybody DC market.
So while both firms are probably very safe for associates, I bet Wachtell would be quicker to lay off associates who aren’t necessary. They would view it as a necessary business decision to maintain profits, while a firm like W&C would take the profit hit in order to keep everyone on.
My vote goes to Williams & Connolly, for the very simple reason that W&C is probably now representing all the executives and companies that were involved in deals that Wachtell put together 5 years ago.
Plus, any firm that just got Ted Stevens off while making the DOJ look like idiots is going to be the go-to firm for anybody in trouble these days (and there are lots of them).
W&C’s winning is clearly the correct result. It’s not about PPP (remember Latham, anyone?) It’s about the culture. An ounce of experience is worth a pound of BS. I used to work at W&C. The rare associates who were asked to leave for performance reasons were regularly allowed to stay on the payroll for a year or more. The non-legal staff has obvious deadwood. It’s hard to say “never,” but W&C would not resort to associates layoffs until about 20 minutes before the U.S. reverted to a hunter-gatherer society.
I could go either way on this, but both firms are worthy finalists.
Moral of the story: “Small is beautiful.” If you’re tiny and super-selective, you don’t have to resort to layoffs.
In case you missed it, here is a look back on WillConn’s path to the top:
Earlier: ATL 2009 March Madness for Law Firms
not first
waste of time and boring
Cadwalader is obviously BigLaw’s safest firm. If you had allowed write-ins, it would have gone all the way.
I think my secretary just ripped a Road Warrior. F’n disgusting.
Next time you want to rig something, make it something interesting.
yawn
*immediately fills in williams & connolly as my #1 bid for this years oci…practices explaining my recently found love of litigation and all things d.c.*
-nervous T-10 1L
soon to be nervous 1L sa
Hey, 7, who are you really? The original Nervous 1L stopped posting weeks ago.
Idiotic topic and the conclusion is moronic.
Idiotic topic and the conclusion is moronic.
Latham won last years’ coolest law firm. Need I say more?
Texas
So what’s the over/under on how many days before Williams & Connolly announces layoffs?
4 already won this post
7 is a fake Nervous 1L. Beware his flame.
“Be patient, my dog of war…”
7: your debut has failed. Go quietly into the night.
“NO!!”
“WE KILL!!!”
“WE GO IN!!!”
“WE KILL!!!!”
hey guys, no i’m the real nervous. remember i lost my password about a month ago? well this is my new username. i’m still the same nervous T-10 1L from michigan. who started posting back in october.
*gives everyone a high five*
-nervous T-10 1L
soon to be nervous 1L sa
What is the safest texas firm?
-nervous 1L who wants to stay in texas
W&C didn’t directly get Ted Stevens off and the DOJ made themselves look like idiots.
Irell & Manella is at least as safe as W&C, if not safer
W&C didn’t directly get Ted Stevens off and the DOJ made themselves look like idiots.
HaynesCoone
This poll is as stupid and useless as NTT1L
W&C is getting me off right now.
Well thank god we now know the opinion of a group of people who have never seen the balance sheets of these firms, have no idea what the current workload at these firms is, have no idea how these firms clients are responding to the times, etc., etc.
Yay uninformed opinions.
3 – half of these firms have laid off associates since the last round of cadwalader redundancies
26 = associate at unsafe firm
enjoy your madden curse w&c. remember the artist formerly known as latham?
23: laid off Texan
what is going on at dickstein shapiro, does anyone know?
Hot cup of balls.
I don’t care if its the real nervous 1L or not, he is a gigantic queef.
4- Best post ever.
PAUL WEISS WAS ROBBED!
nervous…. go away. people know who you are… you were already outed once
LOL @ 31
Why didn’t Milbank win?
34: was i really outed? i haven’t been reading the comments for the past month. nobody in my section knows who nervous T-10 1L is so i doubt i was outed.
-nervous T-10 1L
soon to be nervous 1L sa
Nervoustop101L: You have got to be the douchiest law student on the planet. Who else consistently notes that they’re going to be a summer associate IN EVERY GODDAM POST. Stop rubbing it in everyone’s faces and maybe you wouldn’t be the 2nd most hated person on ATL (after Elie).
–Not a 1L, not nervous
35…what is funny about 31’s question
V&E = safest Texas BigLaw firm
V&E = safest Texas BigLaw firm
I am so glad this stupid game is over…
Please come up with some real material to post.
Everything in Texas is safe.
David Koresh
Litigation is the best place to be right now, and the smaller the better.
Some lit boutiques are still hiring, especially at the junior level:
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/stone_magnanini_job_posting.php
43 – Now that’s a dated reference. Are you by any chance the AIDS joke guy? If so, congratulations on successfully constructing a persona from the early-to-mid 90’s.
Great. Not only are Williams attorneys not going to get fired, but they also won an award for it. Hopefully, some of them went to Carolina too.
Shearman’s not paying a deferral stipend for those not taking the 1 year deferral.
What do people hear about Cadwalader? Having thinned out its ranks, implemented an early start date and gotten involved in a few big deals over the past year, is it the dark horse candidate for next year’s “Safest Firm” poll?
http://www.thomsonreuters.com/content/PDF/financial/league_tables/ma/2009/1Q09_legal_advisory.pdf
If this is any indication… the M&A powerhouses are BACK. Cravath in the first 3 months of this year completed more deals than in ALL of 2008….
Wachtell in the first 3 months of this year completed almost half of what it did in 2008 in the first 3 months of 2009. Bow down.
No M&A isn’t back— but the M&A work that is around is going directly to the top places. Enough said
@45 – From now on I will only make references about topics from the future; and no I am not the AIDS joke guy, but I wish I was. AIDS never gets old.
Ryan White
50 just made me spit out my chicken wrap. Game over. Everyone else, thanks for playing. And 50, when I finish laughing, I hope we can hang out in hell.
40 — then why did v&e scale back their summer program?
v&e was/is transaction heavy compared to bb.
The stealth layoffs at W&C disagree
52, I have no idea as to the health of V&E but scaled back summer programs are no indicator whatsoever. Layoffs, deferred start dates, salary cuts, etc… all reveal a suffering firm. A 10 as opposed to 12 week summer program means absolutely nothing. In this economy, it’s silly to spend on a longer summer program no matter how well your firm is doing.
Williams and WHO? The whole concept of safe firm is a joke. There is no job security anywhere.
54 — well, according to nalp, v&e has over 140 summers this year, for a 700-lawyer firm. that doesn’t sound too safe to me. those numbers might work when there’s voluntary attrition, but if not, something has to give — eg, no-offers to summers, stealth layoffs, or a combination.
This is why willconn won. This amlaw article is about Munger, but everything in it fully applies to willconn (except for the part about 2009 being tough)…
http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/03/munger-revenue-and-profits-flat.html
21,
Irell rescinded 3L offers (for those who did not summer with them the previous summer). Safe?