Three leading international firms crack the top 10 of the American Lawyer magazine’s recently released ‘Best places to work’ survey: Los Angeles-based firms Paul Hastings and Gibson Dunn taking second and sixth places, respectively. New York’s Debevoise & Plimpton bagged ninth place, while Boston’s Ropes & Gray came 10th.

Winners and losers

But just as league tables have winners, they also have those propping up the bottom levels. A firm doesn’t get much more ‘white shoe’ than Wall Street’s Cadwalader, but its historical eminence didn’t seem to count for much with its younger lawyers – the firm placed 125th, only four places out of the basement.
The survey wasn’t much better for a trio of international big names. The US office of London-based magic circle player Linklaters finished only one place higher, while Philadelphia-based Dechert and another old-school Manhattan firm, White & Case, came in at 123rd and 122nd, respectively.

Desperately swamped

The ‘law and order’ section of US web site Business Insider jumped on the results . It quoted a survey respondent as criticising Linklaters’ management as not doing enough ‘to ensure that staff and attorneys at lower levels are fairly and equally assigned work, leaving some attorneys and staff desperately swamped, and others literally twiddling their thumbs for days’.
While a comment regarding Cadwalader says simply, the ‘hours are brutal and the chance of making it to partner are slim’.