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Cravath System

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Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (known as Cravath ; krə- VATH ) is an American white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City . The firm has additional offices in London and Washington, D.C.

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44-482: The Cravath System is a set of business management principles first developed at Cravath, Swaine & Moore . John Oller , author of White Shoe , credits Paul Drennan Cravath with creating the model in the early 20th century, which was adopted by virtually all white-shoe law firms , fifty years before the phrase white shoe came into popular use. The Cravath System has been adopted by many leading law firms , management consulting firms, and investment banks in

88-422: A tax partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher , as the first lateral partner since Herbert L. Camp, also a tax partner, from the now-defunct Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine in 1987. Camp, however, had previously been a Cravath associate and may therefore be considered to not be a true lateral hire because he started his career there. Before that, Roswell Magill , a former Treasury Department official, became

132-576: A 2016 court case against three Chinese hackers who had made more than $ 4 million from insider information about merger deals. In March 2019, the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library debuted an installation highlighting the firm, which illustrates legal milestones across two centuries, including obtaining patents for both the telegraph and the sewing machine, organizing NBC , and securing equal access to locker rooms for women sports reporters, exhibited "through

176-621: A Cravath tax partner in 1943. In 2007, the firm brought in Richard Levin from Skadden, Arps to boost its new bankruptcy practice. In 2011, Cravath hired Christine A. Varney , a former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division for the Obama Administration . This was criticized as a revolving door case, as Cravath later had Varney represent AT&T in its acquisition of Time Warner, which

220-603: A French privateer fleet to attack a British Colony, in spite of an official US policy of neutrality. The Court said the opinion "defies a definitive reading and...hardly suffices to counter the weighty concerns underlying the presumption against extraterritoriality". Finally, the Court found it would be implausible to suppose that the First Congress wanted to make the United States a "uniquely hospitable forum for

264-554: A cause of action for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a sovereign other than the United States." Reargument of the case occurred on October 1, 2012, with Sullivan reappearing for Shell and the United States Solicitor General Donald Verrilli now arguing as a friend to Kiobel. The Court, in an opinion joined by five justices, held that the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to claims under

308-514: A collection of unique documents, photographs, and prints." In 1848, the firm (then Seward & Blatchford) brought the Jones v. Van Zandt challenge to the constitutionality of slavery . In the early 1940s, the firm represented Esquire in Esquire v. Walker , later Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc. , at the U.S. Supreme Court , successfully fighting off the attempted censorship of its magazine by

352-484: A distinct method of hiring, training, and compensating lawyers. His name was added to the firm name in 1901 and, in 1944, after a series of name changes, the Cravath, Swaine & Moore name was established and has not been altered since. Cravath has represented noted American inventors Samuel F.B. Morse , in the late 1840s; Cyrus McCormick , Elias Howe , and Charles Goodyear in the 1850s; and George Westinghouse in

396-592: A friend to Kiobel. The arguments received considerable attention in the legal community. Unexpectedly, the Supreme Court announced, on March 5, 2012, that it would hold additional argument on the case during the October 2012 term. It directed the parties to file new briefs on the question "Whether and under what circumstances the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, allows courts to recognize

440-864: A landmark " poison pill " trial. In the past several decades Cravath has represented Netscape in its antitrust suit against Microsoft , resulting in a $ 750 million settlement; major merger and acquisition deals, such as the DuPont - Conoco merger, the Ford - Jaguar merger, the Bristol-Myers-Squibb merger, the Time-Warner merger, and the AOL - Time-Warner merger; and two famed libel suits: defending Time Inc. against Israeli General Ariel Sharon , and also defending CBS against U.S. Army General William Westmoreland . Unlike others, Cravath has remained

484-540: A likely Chapter 9 filing for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania . The firm's restructuring work traces back to clients such as Goodyear in 1921. After their 1916 reorganization of corporations lectures before the Bar of the City of New York , Paul D. Cravath and William D. Guthrie were reviewed to be "men of wide experience in these matters," and several of their partners including Alexander I. Henderson and Robert T. Swaine "ranked among

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528-556: A relatively small firm. Its approximately 500 lawyers are located primarily in the New York Office, with a few dozen in the London office, which opened in 1973 and Washington, DC launched in 2022. The firm opened a Hong Kong office in 1994, closing it nine years later. In 2015, Cravath, Swaine and Moore was the victim of what the firm described as a "limited breach" of its computer network, which The New York Times connected to

572-451: Is an important American national interest like not providing safe harbor to hostis humani generis , or the common enemy of mankind. Breyer first attacks the majority's view that the presumption is not rebutted. He notes that while the majority sees the ATS as applying to piracy on the high seas , piracy necessarily occurs aboard a ship and so is considered to occur within the territory of

616-562: The Nigerian government , in a brutal crushing of peaceful resistance to aggressive oil development in the Ogoni Niger River Delta . Plaintiffs sought damages under the ATS. The defendants moved to dismiss based on a two-pronged argument. Firstly, they argued that customary international law itself provides the rules to decide whether conduct violates the law of nations where non-state actors are alleged to have committed

660-604: The two postmasters General in 1946. In the 1960s, Cravath lawyers wrote the U.S. Supreme Court brief on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality ’s Freedom rides protesting segregated buses, and were called upon by President John F. Kennedy to help form the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In 1966, the firm helped launch litigation that would become Miranda v. Arizona , which established that states cannot interrogate suspects without informing them of

704-576: The "Cravath Scale". In November 2023, amid a wave of antisemitic incidents at elite U.S. law schools, Cravath, Swaine & Moore was among a group of major law firms who sent a letter to top law school deans warning them that an escalation in incidents targeting Jewish students would have corporate hiring consequences. The letter said "We look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less

748-619: The 1865 passing of the Thirteenth Amendment , and negotiated the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia in a transaction that his opponents derisively called " Seward's Folly " and "Seward's Icebox", though since noted as a "bargain Basement deal" that was the principal positive accomplishment of the Andrew Johnson presidency. Paul Drennan Cravath joined the firm in 1899, and devised the " Cravath System ", combining

792-540: The 1880s. Some current client relationships that began in the 1800s are with CBS , JPMorgan , and PricewaterhouseCoopers . The firm has had a long record of clients in the US railroad industry beginning with the New York & Erie and Union Pacific railroads, and express delivery businesses such as Adams, Southern , and Wells Fargo . Its 19th-century history includes the 1808 insanity defense of William Freeman for

836-410: The ATS, and nothing in the statute rebuts that presumption. The presumption against extraterritoriality is a canon of statutory interpretation that provides there is no extraterritorial application of a statute unless there is a clear indication otherwise. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Roberts observed that while the presumption applies to merits questions and the ATS is strictly jurisdictional,

880-553: The Antitrust Division let pass. In 2013, the firm hired David Kappos , who served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office . In addition, the system includes lockstep compensation on a published scale, which has tended to be consistent with the scale paid by most leading US law firms, and is known (for historical reasons) as

924-589: The State of the Church . His son, Samuel , also a partner at the firm, served as a federal district court and appeals court judge, was appointed to the United States Supreme Court , in 1882, by President Chester Arthur , serving for 11 years until his death; he was the first person to serve at all three levels of the judiciary. Seward served as both Governor and Senator from New York, supported

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968-463: The United States. Paul Cravath built a reputation handling complex lawsuits for the new electrical industry . Devising the Cravath System, he enlarged the law office and professionalised it by establishing full-time librarians , a recruiting system focused solely on the highest-ranked law schools, and partners who specialized. Robert Swaine describes the fundamentals of the Cravath System in

1012-478: The beginning of Volume 2 of the history of the Cravath firm. These include: Cravath, Swaine %26 Moore In 1854, former college classmates William H. Seward (later Abraham Lincoln 's Secretary of State) and Richard M. Blatchford merged their respective law firms, forming Blatchford, Seward & Griswold. Blatchford served in the New York State Assembly , and as U.S. Minister to

1056-629: The conduct of foreign affairs is rejected by Breyer, who notes US obligations under the Convention Against Torture , the third Geneva Convention , the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance , and several other treaties. Ultimately, however, the concurrence agrees with the Court's judgment, as the mere corporate presence of a foreign defendant does not invoke

1100-426: The enforcement of international norms." The Court noted that all conduct at issue in the case took place outside the United States and that "it would reach too far to say that mere corporate presence suffices" to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality, unless Congress determines otherwise in a statute more specific than the ATS. Justice Kennedy separately wrote a one-paragraph concurrence noting that

1144-549: The kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses." Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. , 569 U.S. 108 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the court found that the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act . According to the Court's majority opinion, "it would reach too far to say that mere corporate presence suffices" to displace

1188-578: The leaders of the reorganization bar." In November 2014, Cravath handled three M&A transactions in one day, spanning advertising, spirits, and pharmaceutical industries; and acted as legal advisor in a recently announced deal backed by 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. that will create the third-largest food and beverage company in North America. Other significant representations have included legal work necessary to form NBC , United Airlines in its merger with Continental Airlines ,

1232-642: The murder of John G. Van Nest, the 1848 Jones v. Van Zandt challenge to the constitutionality of slavery, and the Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company tax case of 1895. Cases of mention before the Supreme , appellate and Chancery courts in more recent decades have been Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. , Westfed Holdings Inc. v. United States , and City of Providence v. First Citizens BancShares Inc. et al . Important litigation work with IBM has included two landmark antitrust cases, one of which

1276-399: The presumption against extraterritorial application "may require some further elaboration and explanation." Justice Alito , joined by Justice Thomas , agreed that the statute does not apply extraterritorially and argued that it should be read to apply to only the international law violations that had been identified by William Blackstone in 1769: violation of safe conducts, infringement of

1320-421: The presumption against extraterritoriality should still apply to the statute because of the danger of judicial interference in foreign policy. The Court further reasoned that nothing in the text, history or purposes of the ATS rebuts the presumption. The common law transitory torts doctrine, which holds that causes based on a transitory action arising abroad may be considered as happening domestically, helps rebut

1364-550: The presumption against extraterritoriality when all the alleged wrongful conduct takes place outside the United States. The Court did not rule out the possibility of corporate liability if the presumption against extraterritoriality could be overcome by acts that sufficiently "touch and concern" the United States. Lower court decisions were divided. After the Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC ruled out an ATS cause of action against foreign corporate defendants,

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1408-407: The presumption, as the statute may have other meanings. The Court also disregarded a 1795 opinion by Attorney General William Bradford that "there can be no doubt" of tort liability for American citizens who had been plundering inside Sierra Leone . The Bradford Opinion was a response to British complaints about US citizens who violated a treaty between the United States and Britain by joining

1452-600: The questions at issue. In a 2–1 decision issued on September 17, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that corporations cannot be held liable for violations of customary international law: Kiobel petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the Second Circuit's decision. It was granted on October 17, 2011. Oral arguments were held on February 28, 2012, with Kathleen Sullivan arguing for Shell and Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler arguing as

1496-622: The reputations of firms other than their own, Cravath ranked as the #1 law firm in the United States in the annual "Vault Law 100", in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and either #1 or #2 annually, since 2007. and the 2017 Above The Law Power 100 and Office 100. In 2016 Chambers and Partners ranked Cravath in the top tier among U.S. law firms for Banking & Finance, Capital Markets (Debt & Equity), Corporate/M&A (The Elite), Environment (Mainly Transactional), Media & Entertainment (Corporate), Securities Litigation, General Commercial Litigation (The Elite) and Tax. Cravath

1540-626: The right to counsel, now implemented as the Miranda warning issued by police to criminal suspects taken into custody. In 1971, as The Washington Post prepared to publish the Pentagon Papers , Cravath reformed the publisher as a public company that was structured to protect editorial freedom. In 1989, the firm argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of African American and women firefighters in Birmingham, Alabama . The case

1584-430: The rights of ambassadors, and piracy. Justice Breyer , joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan, concurred with the judgment but rejected the Court's reasoning. The four justices did not believe that the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to the ATS. Instead, the concurrence sees ATS jurisdiction as limited to when the tort occurs on American soil, the defendant is an American national, or when there

1628-599: The ship's flag state . He then outlines the long history of an international duty to not provide safe harbor to hostis humani generis, or the common enemy of mankind. He then reviews thirty years of U.S. Court of Appeals cases holding for extraterritorial application of the ATS. The concurrence takes issue with the majority's characterization of the ATS as "uniquely hospitable" by noting that many countries permit extraterritorial suits, citing Dutch, English, International Court of Justice , and European Commission sources. The Court's concern on unwarranted judicial interference in

1672-689: The significance of the "touch and concern" test remains unclear. Kiobel is considered a 'foreign cubed' case in which foreign plaintiffs made a claim against a foreign company for human rights violations overseas. The plaintiffs in Kiobel were citizens of Nigeria who claimed that Dutch, British, and Nigerian oil-exploration corporations aided and abetted the Nigerian government in the 1990s to commit violations of customary international law . The plaintiffs claimed that Royal Dutch Shell compelled Shell Nigeria its Nigerian subsidiary, in cooperation with

1716-402: The violations with sufficient particularity. The court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss with respect to the remaining claims of aiding and abetting arbitrary arrest and detention ; crimes against humanity; and torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment . The district court then certified its entire order for interlocutory appeal to the Second Circuit based on the serious nature of

1760-407: The world's largest airline, to Unilever in its acquisition of Alberto-Culver . In 2010, its litigation department won summary judgment for Morgan Stanley on its breach of contract claim against Discover Financial Services . In a subsequent settlement, Discover agreed to pay Morgan Stanley $ 775 million to resolve the litigation. In the same year they successfully represented Barnes & Noble in

1804-432: The wrong in question. Second, they contended that no norm has ever existed between nations that imposes liability upon corporate actors. On September 29, 2006, the district court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims for aiding and abetting property destruction; forced exile; extrajudicial killing ; and violation of the rights to life, liberty, security, and association. It reasoned that customary international law did not define

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1848-605: Was a 13-year battle dubbed by Time magazine as “the case of the century." The firm has represented entities in the United Kingdom and Europe since the 1820s from the Bank of England , to landmark public offerings by EU predecessors since the 1950s. HM Treasury , Grupo Modelo , Santander , and HDFC Bank are among more recent international clients. Cravath drew attention to its bankruptcy practice on November 10, 2010, by offering free representation in advance of

1892-658: Was a catalyst for the Civil Rights Act of 1991 . Cravath concluded successful plaintiff representation in United States v. Jefferson County in December 2020. During 2019 - 2021, Cravath represented Epic Games in Epic Games v. Apple , alleging anticompetitive behavior in the distribution of mobile apps and the processing of in-app purchases. Based on a survey of law firm associate attorneys rating

1936-667: Was ranked 52 in The American Lawyer 's Am Law 200 in 2022, which lists the firm by revenue and profits per lawyer, compensation and other criteria. Under the Cravath System , the firm is known for focusing its hiring on associates straight from law school, with a strong emphasis on grades, then over years of apprenticeship rotations, immersing them in details of every aspect of corporate law practice. Under this philosophy, lateral hires are rare, with some exceptions. In 2005, Cravath hired Andrew W. Needham , formerly

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