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ATL March Madness for Law Firms: Williams & Connolly is Crowned Biglaw’s Safest Firm

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 11:07 AM - By Kashmir Hill

Above the law march madness williams connolly victory.jpgThe 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:
2009 March Madness final bracket.jpg
Earlier: ATL 2009 March Madness for Law Firms

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Posted in: March Madness 2009, Williams & Connolly

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