The Anointed: New York’s White Shoe Law Firms—How They Started, How They Grew, and How They Ran the Country
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Overview
This is the story of how and why such powerhouse Wall Street law firms as Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Davis Polk & Wardwell, and Sullivan & Cromwell, grew from nineteenth-century entrepreneurial origins into icons of institutional law practice; how, as white-shoe bastions with the social standards of an exclusive gentlemen’s club, they promoted the values of an east coast elite; and how they adapted to a radically changed legal world, surviving snobbish insularity and ferocious competition to remain at the pinnacle of a transformed profession.
It is no accident these firms are found in New York, the largest city in the world’s largest economy and also the nation’s largest port, principal banking center, and epicenter of industry. At the dawn of the twentieth century, linked by canals, railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, transatlantic steamships and undersea cables, New York became the economic nerve center of the United States. It also wielded formidable political power and supplied every President or Vice President of the United States between the Civil War and the Great War.
“’The Best and the Brightest’ was a label applied during the Vietnam War to academics and certain others who came to Washington to work for the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, albeit with somewhat mixed results. They were Ivy League graduates who shared a similar global outlook and many of the same values. But an even more elite group were alumni of the three towering giants of the American legal establishment during the 20th century—Cravath, Davis Polk, and Sullivan & Cromwell. They were the precursors of today’s global US-based investment banks and now the Silicon Valley and Seattle tech giants in terms of their reach and impact on the US and global economy. This book chronicles the rise and continuing influence of these inner circle firms in business and government through periods of enormous social and professional change.”—John Colby, Senior Advisor with the Carlyle Group in Washington, and an alumnus of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, class of 1973
The Anointed shows evidence of a great deal of research, and the subject is fascinating... The authors’ central (if implicit) point is a good one. The old era was ruled by loyalty and social connections. The profit motive that replaced it may have been crass, but it imposed a welcome regime of merit.
The authors turn the evolution of law over the century into a lively history, with accounts of fighting the New Deal and in-house disagreements over working with Nazis. Those looking for a shrewd inside take on elite law firms will find this brings the goods.
The one hundred and eighty-two pages rigorously researched book is loaded with insightful references that give readers a complete picture of the rise of the White-Shoe New York law firms and their immense influence on society.
- Title: The Anointed: New York’s White Shoe Law Firms—How They Started, How They Grew, and How They Ran the Country
- Authors: Jeremiah Lambert, Geoffrey Stewart
- Publisher: Lyons Press
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2021
- Pages: 256
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781493056347, 9781538116555, 1538116553, 1493056344
- Resource ID: LLS:9781493056347
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-21T23:59:27Z
Jeremiah D. Lambert, a nationally recognized lawyer who has advised clients in the electricity and natural gas industries, also served as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Global Crossing Ltd. during that company’s Chapter 11 reorganization and thereafter as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of its post-bankruptcy successor. Mr. Lambert is the author of The Power Brokers, a narrative history of the electric utility industry in the United States published by MIT Press in 2015, How Deregulation Went Wrong (PennWell 2006), and Creating Competitive Power Markets: the PJM Model (PennWell 2001), among other books and publications. Mr. Lambert, a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars, commenced his legal career in New York City as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and later practiced as a co-founder of Peabody, Lambert & Meyers in Washington, D.C. and as a partner in several national firms. He is a graduate of Princeton University, a former Fulbright Scholar, and a graduate of Yale Law School. He is married to Sanda Kayden Lambert and resides in Palm Beach, Florida.
Geoffrey S. Stewart is a Washington-based lawyer who handles complex commercial and international litigation. He attended Brown University, where he received his A.B. (Honors) and A.M degrees in European history and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Stewart received his legal training at Harvard Law School and began his legal career at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and Washington, D.C. He served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy in 1982-83 and was Associate Counsel to the Office of Independent Counsel Iran/Contra from 1987 to 1991. Mr. Stewart was a partner of the firm Hale and Dorr from 1986 to 1999 and a partner of the firm Jones Day from 1999 to 2018. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his wife, Sandra Baker, who for many years produced the Diane Rehm Show, syndicated on National Public Radio.