Tom Borman, LawFuel contributing editor
Cravath, heading the LawFuel ‘Most Prestigous Law Firm List’ has announced its new partner class for 2025, and it’s a significant step up from last year, promoting seven attorneys to partner, nearly doubling the size of its 2023 class.
But one of the big questions that will be interesting to see is what ‘tier’ of pay the new partners make, given that Cravaths – the people gave us the ‘Cravath Scale’ in pay – have adopted a ‘salaried partner tier’ that involves non-equity partners.
Previously, Cravaths had a pay model that was all equity.
The moves reflect the increasingly aggressive and also flexible pay models being adopted by major law firms, and also increasingly boutique law firms, to permit greater ability to attract major legal talent who require the big bucks to make the lateral moves.
Unsurprisingly given that Cravaths is one of the major corporate law firms specialising in M&A, banking and corporate work, the new partner class is heavily focused on corporate work, with six out of the seven promotions coming from Cravath’s corporate practice.
The new corporate partners are Isaac Beerman, Alexander Greenberg, Jackson Lam, Edward Minturn, Margaret Rallings, and Sarah Rosen. Jana Hymowitz rounds out the class with a promotion in the executive compensation and benefits department.
This announcement is particularly interesting in light of Cravath’s recent decision to create a “salaried partner tier” in late 2023, which has been also adopted by other firms like Cleary Gottlieb. This move, which introduced non-equity partners to the firm’s structure, was a significant departure from Cravath’s traditional all-equity partnership model.
The other question is what level the Cravath bonus payments will be this year – always a matter watched with great interest as a market-leading move by the corporate law heavyweight and trendsetter.
