Davis Polk & Wardwell

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Davis Polk & Wardwell
Davis Polk & Wardwell
Headquarters New York City
No. of Offices 10
No. of Attorneys 740+
Major Practice Areas General practice
Revenue $650 million
Date Founded 1849
Company Type General Partnership
Website davispolk.com

Davis Polk & Wardwell is an international law firm, headquartered in New York. The firm employs more than 740 attorneys and is primarily known for its corporate, finance and litigation practices and represents many of the world's largest companies and financial institutions. In 2006, the partnership earned $1,820,000 profits per partner.[1]


Contents

[edit] History

The firm traces its origins to the mid-19th century—to the firm established in 1849. Francis S. Bangs was a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School and a prominent litigator who rose to lead the firm then called Gunthrie, Bangs & Van Sinderen. He gained notoriety in opposing New York City Democrat strongman William Tweed and his political machine, Tammany Hall. Bangs went on to serve as a director of National Underwriters of New York and the Bowery Savings Bank.[2] The next great partner in the firm that was to become Davis Polk & Wardwell was Franics Lynde Steton of the firm as it was then known as Stetson, Jennings & Russell. He was a famous boardroom attorney and helped John Pierpont Morgan cobble together such blue chip companies as U.S. Steel Corporation, General Electric, and numerous railroads. He was a graduate of Williams College and Columbia Law School, and remained active in alumni organizations of those schools. He was a Democrat and contributed advice and funds to successive administrations. Mr. Steton was a past president of both the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the the New York State Bar Association. He was also a director of the New York Botanical Gardens.[3]

The firm takes its current name from three 20th century partners, including John W. Davis, a former Solicitor General of the United States and the Democratic nominee for president in 1924. At his death in 1955, Davis had made 139 oral arguments before the US Supreme Court, a record at the time. Davis received fourteen honorary doctorates. Felix Frankfurter, Learned Hand, and Hugo Black, among others, deemed him one of the two or three finest advocates of the century. Other named partners included Harvard Law School graduate Allen Wardwell, who joined in 1898, and Frank Polk. Together they deepened relations with the J.P. Morgan companies and became outside counsel of choice to to the Guaranty Trust Company. Other notable clients in the early 1900s included, the Associated Press and the International Paper Company. Mr. Davis represented South Carolina in the consolidated case Brown v. Board of Education in which the New York firm sought to uphold segregation. It was one of the few instances where the firm lost at the appellate level.

By 1958, the firm counted 30 partners and 67 associates. It was dubbed the 'Tiffany of law firms' because of its genteel and aristocratic, white shoe culture. In 1962, the firm opened its first overseas office in Paris. This was followed by a launch in London in 1973. Offices in Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Frankfurt and Hong Kong soon followed. In 1995, rumors circulated in the legal press that Davis Polk was in merger talks with the British predecessor firm to today's Magic Circle giant Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. These talks came to naught, and Davis Polk does not practice English law in its London branch.

The firm aggressively embraced the New Economy in the 1990s, and alongside New York stalwarts (and competitors) Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Shearman & Sterling, the firm opened an office in Menlo Park in 1999, luring a high-profile partner from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and another former Davis Polk associate from the predecessor to Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. In 2001, building on its relationship with Spanish bank Banco Santander Central Hispano, the firm launched in Madrid. Its latest office is in Beijing to take advantage of the wave of Chinese initial public offerings. To increase its expertise in China, Davis Polk recently poached the head partner of the Beijing office of the California firm O’Melveny & Myers.

[edit] Famous alumni

[edit] Offices

[edit] North America

  • New York - The firm's largest office, housing 80 percent of its lawyers at 450 Lexington Avenue. Partners in the New York office include former Whitewater prosecutor Robert B. Fiske.
  • Washington, D.C.
  • Menlo Park

[edit] Europe

[edit] Asia

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Full Profits Picture," 6/2007 AMLAW 151
  2. ^ 'Francis S. Bangs, Leading Lawyer, Dies,' The New York Times, March 3, 1920.
  3. ^ Francis L. Steton, Lawyer, Dies at 74,' The New York Times, December 6, 1920

[edit] External links