Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
Some of the best law firms in New York City still have that old mindset of … chasing a deal. We had the luxury of not having the history of 150 years of representing James Pierpont Morgan or Mr. Goldman. We invested in our clients. We thought about, where do the clients want to be in five years, 10 years, and what skills are we going to need to bring to our platform to be that consigliere, that strategic adviser to our very best clients.
When you have a bet-your-company M&A matter, when you have a bet-your-company controversy … I want someone to think, ‘We need to call Latham & Watkins.’ I want us to be the only firm that comes to mind.
— Marc Jaffe, managing partner of Latham & Watkins’ New York office, in comments given to the American Lawyer, on the firm’s strategy in the city as a “talent aggregator” that can “exercise dominance” over the competition. “There are firms that we compete with in slices, in products. I think there is no firm that presents to the market the breadth of … market leadership that we do,” he said.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.