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“Growing up in Canada and speaking French and Mandarin, I set out to find a firm with a global practice. The breadth of Cravath’s Corporate Department was really important to me. I knew that I would be working on cutting-edge matters not just in the United States, but also all over the world. But the strong work experience I knew that I’d get at Cravath was only half of the picture. I was also looking for a firm with a positive and collaborative work environment. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure I’d find it at Cravath, but was pleasantly surprised. Because an associate’s work is assigned by the partners in his or her group, the partners have a keen interest in training their associates. Plus, there’s no competition among associates for the high-profile deals and all attorneys are more than willing to share their knowledge with you. People at the Firm are serious about their work, but are always helpful and friendly. Indeed, some of my closest friends are people I first met at Cravath.

“Although I knew that I wanted to be a corporate lawyer, as a new law school graduate I had no idea which discipline within corporate practice suited me best, and I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into one corporate practice area so early in my career. Fortunately, Cravath’s rotation system never made me choose.”
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“I started in an M&A rotation and my first big project was a hostile takeover, complete with a proxy contest and tender offer. I was living a page right out of my M&A casebook. I also worked on a number of large public and private M&A transactions where I negotiated and drafted various documents for the transactions. In my second rotation, a securities rotation, the level of responsibility shot up right away and I was the lead associate on various high-yield debt, convertible debt and equity offerings, working primarily as counsel for the underwriters. My tasks included negotiating deal documents and preparing disclosure in the offering memoranda and prospectuses. My third rotation was a mix of securities and M&A, with a particular focus on cross-border deals. I was the lead associate drafting and negotiating M&A transactions for several Canadian and Bermudian clients and was also the lead associate on various high-yield and equity issuances for a number of Canadian clients. I then did a banking rotation, working on a number of financings for both strategic and financial-sponsor M&A transactions.

“Next, I was off to our London office where again I was a generalist. I worked on what were at the time two of the biggest European high-yield offerings ever, as well as an IPO for an Indian client and a number of other equity and bank and bond financing transactions. When I returned to New York, I was back doing M&A—both public and private transactions. I also worked on a high-profile proxy contest and did a short stint working with our litigators when that matter went into litigation. After the annual meeting and trial, I spent a few months seconded to an investment banking client, working with their equity derivatives group lawyers.

“As a partner, my career has been equally varied. I started out spending half of my time on M&A matters, like Kraft’s recent sale of its frozen pizza assets to Nestlé, and the other half of my time advising boards of directors and senior management in connection with various governance issues and internal investigations. Currently, I’m transitioning back again to our London office where my practice will continue to be a mix of cross-border M&A and securities work. The constant change and variety in my practice keeps things interesting and fun, and it also makes me a stronger lawyer. The Cravath System focuses on developing the “whole” lawyer, a well-rounded advisor with a broad perspective who can counsel her clients on all aspects of a transaction, from financing documents to M&A negotiations to SEC compliance and corporate governance issues and, importantly, how they interrelate. In all the years that I’ve been at the Firm, that’s certainly been the case for me.”
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“I had no lawyers in my family, and didn’t know any lawyers to whom I could turn for advice, but I knew that I wanted to be a trial lawyer, and wanted to go to whatever firm would make me into the best trial lawyer I could be. At that time, there was virtually no information available that would have given me any guidance about the differences among law firms, and I had no idea how to choose among them. After my first year at NYU, I went to talk to the faculty advisor for the Law Review, Professor Collins, and asked him what I should do. As it happened, Professor Collins had been a Cravath associate before deciding on a career in academia, and he told me that the best law firm anywhere was Cravath, and that I should write them a letter asking for a job. So I sent a letter to Cravath, and got a call from the hiring partner’s office asking me to come in for a day of interviews in August.

“I put on the only suit I had and showed up at Cravath for what turned out to be an exhausting day of interviews. At the end of the day, the hiring partner offered me a summer job, which I accepted on the spot. Those were, and still are, the only interviews I’ve ever had for a law firm job. Over the course of my interview day, I was struck by two very different things. The lawyers I met were vastly different from one to the next, in terms of their personalities, their backgrounds, the cases on which they were working and the questions they asked me. But they shared a common trait: an extraordinary commitment to the Firm and to excellence. I was convinced by my day of interviews that the people at Cravath were a group unlike any other, in terms of their capabilities and commitment; I still believe that today.”
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“The rotation system was instrumental in my decision to join Cravath. Coming from a federal clerkship, I realized that the most important aspect of a firm for a new associate is training. In that regard, Cravath promised what no other firm could: built-in mentors who were uniquely interested in my professional development, the opportunity to work on a variety of litigation matters and a premium on training as a litigator in any area of law. If I came to Cravath, I would not be asked to limit myself to a particular specialty, I would not spend years climbing a hierarchy on the same few matters and I would not be asked to find my own work or compete with fellow associates for plum assignments. Cravath delivered what it promised.”
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“In my first rotation, I worked on a federal jury trial that went to verdict; even as the most junior member of the team, I was in court every day and responsible for preparing several witnesses. In my next rotation, I began running cases, assumed the lead associate role on several briefs, took and defended numerous depositions, took the direct and cross-examination of fact and expert witnesses at an international arbitration trial, participated in a federal bench trial and argued my first motion to dismiss. My next rotation brought another federal jury trial, as well as the opportunity to run a multi-suit securities matter where I focused on litigation strategy, client interaction and negotiations with opposing counsel (a partner at his firm, though I was only a fourth-year associate at the time). As a fifth-year associate, I was rotated again to serve as the senior associate on the recently filed, multi-district Enron securities litigation, in which we represented Credit Suisse in more than 20 actions in federal, state and bankruptcy court. While working with two partners in managing those cases day-to-day, I also took on my own pro bono case for a prisoner, a case that gave me numerous appearances and arguments in federal court. After a final rotation, in which I worked on a variety of matters, including another trial, I was elected partner while expecting the first of my three sons. Though I had five rotations, each of which provided me with mentors whose guidance has shaped my career, I worked with 19 litigation partners in my years as an associate.

“While I consider myself fortunate to have had such training, my experience is not unique. The rotation system ensures that each associate will be challenged to learn and achieve as much as she possibly can. All it asks in return is that you do your best and be a mentor to your colleagues behind you.”
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“Although I was born in New York City, I grew up in a suburb in Westchester County and began there what would ultimately become a journey back to New York City after a number of stops elsewhere. After college, I attended graduate school in England and studied medieval history, including medieval legal history and the origins of the English Court of Chancery in the fourteenth century. In law school, I fortunately also developed substantial interest in more modern aspects of the law. After clerking for a federal appeals court judge on the West Coast, I finally returned to New York City, where I began to work at Cravath. To me, Cravath was remarkable in its time-honored and unabashed commitment to excellence, combined with its embrace of the ideals of meritocracy. At Cravath, each associate is assigned to a partner for a rotation period, and each of the partners is committed to developing the skills of his or her associates. With small teams come increased responsibility and more opportunities to work directly with partners. As a result, partners have a well-developed sense of an associate’s progress and are able to direct associates to areas where improvement and further skill development can take place.”
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“Like the many others who have experienced the rotation system at Cravath, I had the opportunity to learn from observing first-rate practitioners in action as well as the opportunity to take on active roles myself. During my first months at Cravath, I helped to draft a First Amendment complaint against the City of New York, argued a motion in federal court and took depositions in a Title VII age and race discrimination case. Later in that rotation, I drafted briefs and prepared for court hearings in two complex antitrust litigations, conducted interviews in connection with an internal investigation involving trade secrets, and argued a discovery motion in a death penalty case. My second rotation took me out of the country for a number of engagements. In Asia and Europe, I prepared and defended a number of deponents in a major banking litigation. In Central and South America, I conducted interviews in connection with an internal investigation. For my third and fourth rotations, I became the senior associate on a high-profile antitrust litigation, which involved extensive brief writing, discovery disputes and expert work. Throughout the rotation process, the work was always demanding yet very interesting. Dull is a word that I could never associate with my rotation experience. As an associate, I never knew what type of challenge might lie ahead and I always looked forward to the opportunity to learn about an entirely new industry or area of the law. As a partner, I endeavor to give my associates the kinds of meaningful learning experiences that I enjoyed, and I derive much professional pleasure from the privilege of representing a diverse array of clients facing ever-evolving challenges.”
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“I was born and raised in central Ohio and went to law school at the University of Texas. I had resolved early on in the interview process not to spend too much time looking at New York law firms, based in large part on my preconceived notion of what life in a ‘white shoe’ New York City law firm was likely to be like, particularly for someone from the Midwest. When I met with Cravath on campus in Austin, I was surprised by how little the lawyers resembled the stereotype. I ultimately decided to give it a shot for a couple of years, take advantage of the unique training to become the strongest lawyer I could become in that time and then take the experience and the Cravath name back to a firm in the Midwest. That was more than a decade ago and today I can’t imagine living and raising my twins in any other city or practicing law at any other firm.”
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“I started at Cravath in a diverse general corporate practice, where I worked on everything from emergency federal financing for an airline to international energy joint ventures to cross-border financings. I was consistently amazed at the level of responsibility that Cravath provides to its young associates. By the time I started my second rotation, which was in a securities group, I was already being given the opportunity to act as the lead associate on IPOs and other capital markets transactions, generally across the table from counterparts at other firms who were several years my senior.

“I then moved on to a public M&A practice, where I acted as the senior associate on a number of high-profile deals, including representing Sprint in its merger with Nextel, representing the independent directors of MCI in the contested acquisition of MCI by Verizon and representing Chevron in its takeover battle with CNOOC (an oil company owned and funded by the Chinese government) for control of Unocal. After that, I moved on to a private M&A practice, working on such transactions as Time Warner’s disposition of the Atlanta Braves, and then to a high-yield practice at the height of the LBO boom, working on some of the largest proposed buyouts in history. Since becoming a partner, I have continued to work on a diverse collection of transactions, including recently representing Time Warner in its spin-offs of Time Warner Cable and AOL.”
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“I was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and grew up in Orange County, California. As a senior in high school and throughout my undergraduate years at Duke University, I worked as a consultant for a few start-up companies during the nascent stages of the Internet boom. This experience fueled my interest in corporate law, as I saw first-hand how corporate lawyers were instrumental in guiding clients through key strategic moments, such as initial financings, public offerings and mergers. More importantly, it convinced me that intelligence and hard work could overcome experience, and that young professionals could make a real difference. Going into my interview with Cravath, I was focused on how much responsibility I would be given as a young associate. While this concern was certainly addressed (as one partner put it to me, ‘The Firm doesn’t encourage associate responsibility, it depends on it.’), what ultimately sold me on Cravath, and very much surprised me, was the Firm’s focus on individualism. Every lawyer I met was very effective, but also very different. They each succeeded on their own terms. I had not thought at all about professional individualism during my interview process, but once I saw it at work, it made the idea of a long-term legal career click for me. To this day, one of the best parts of my job is continually working to make my career my own and watching and assisting other lawyers at Cravath do the same.”
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“I started in a general corporate practice, where I worked on private and public M&A deals, securities offerings and commercial bank financings. Within a few months of beginning work at the Firm, I was tasked with taking the lead in closing several deals and, by the end of my first rotation, I was given the opportunity to serve as the lead associate for a securities offering. I then moved to a public M&A practice, where I acted as the lead associate on a number of high-profile deals, including Johnson & Johnson’s bid for Guidant and Noble Energy’s acquisition of Patina Oil & Gas. Next stops were a commercial banking rotation, then a securities rotation, where I acted as lead associate on a variety of ground-breaking deals, including the bank financing for the SunGard acquisition and the bond offering for the Freescale acquisition. My last couple of rotations focused on public M&A and corporate governance, including work on The Container Store’s partnership with Leonard Green & Partners, JPMorgan’s acquisition of Bear, Stearns and PNC’s acquisition of National City Bank. As a partner, I have focused on M&A and corporate governance, including recently representing Affiliated Computer Services in its acquisition by Xerox and the Kuwait Sovereign Fund in capital restructurings.

“The two consistent themes throughout all my rotations were challenge and growth. I always felt that I was being pushed to my limits and sometimes beyond. Although this was sometimes daunting and frustrating, in retrospect, I’m not sure I’d still be here without the constant excitement.”
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