Cravath Swaine & Moore has promoted 11 lawyers to partner in its latest round, the firm's largest in six years.
The round, effective on 1 January 2027, includes six women and five men and matches the firm's record of 11 promotions it set in 2020.
Six have moved up in the firm's litigation department and five in its corporate department, which advised on M&A deals worth nearly $170bn in the first nine months of the year and in September made the headline-grabbing hire of Weil's former corporate chair, Michael Aiello, alongside five other M&A partners.
Most of those promoted – eight – are based in the firm's New York headquarters, with two moving up in Washington DC and one in London.
In New York, venture capital and growth equity specialist Virginia Anderson and Kathryn Kennedy Bleday, who focuses on credit and banking matters, have been promoted in the corporate department. The New York litigation team has welcomed Katherine DuBois, Daniel Ottaunick, Madalyn Vaughn and Kathleen Young, who focus on antitrust and general commercial matters, alongside IP litigator Jonathan Mooney and Scott Reents, who specialises in advising on the application of AI and other advanced technologies to legal practice.
In Washington DC, financial institutions lawyer Lucas Edward Beirne and corporate governance lawyer Lisa Kohl have moved up in the corporate department, with the London promotion going to Lawrence Verhelst, whose practice spans finance and capital markets.
Cravath's approximately 530 lawyers brought in revenue of $1.2bn in 2025, according to data published by law.com, with profit per equity partner standing at $6.9m.
The promotions follow a period of comparative churn in Cravath's partnership, which used to be virtually immune to departures but has seen rainmakers exit in recent years amid intense competition for talent among leading law firms.
There have been at least 10 exits in 2026, among them the firm's head of private equity, Peter Feist, who rejoined Weil in September ahead of the firm's decision to wind down.
George Schoen, Cravath’s former global M&A co-chair, joined US building materials supplier Martin Marietta as GC in February, while Scott Bennett, who had been co-head of Cravath’s venture capital and growth equity and digital assets practices in New York, left for Sidley Austin in April.
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