Lawyers: The Factories

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Next to good grades, the factories list "energy" and "personality" as the main criteria for judging prospects. Some "white-shoe outfits" (so called because white bucks were once standard footgear on Ivy League campuses) still cherish a preference for an upper-class family background. It also helps to be free of conspicuous eccentricities: a facial tic, a squeaky voice or a gaudy necktie can bar a bright applicant, and even too much library pallor may arouse suspicion. In response to a Harvard Law School questionnaire on what it was looking for in graduates, a New York firm curtly replied, "Byron White." The name alone conjured up the improbable combination of football hero, Rhodes scholar and Supreme Court Justice.

Darkness at 2. Once he gets in, the graduate is often assigned to several different departments over a period of two years or so before settling into a specialty. Statistically, a new associate has about one chance in seven of eventually reaching a partnership. The climb takes about ten years in New York, but in California an able newcomer can hope to become a partner in five years, or even less.

It is seldom easy. Getting ahead in a big law firm means a hefty amount of evening and weekend work. "There is somebody here every night of the year except Christmas," says a Shearman & Sterling partner. Once he gets to be a partner, a factory lawyer finds that he works just as hard at the top as he did on the climb. Wall Street lawyers still like to recall an anecdote about the late Hoyt A. Moore, a partner in Cravath, Swaine & Moore. A colleague once told Moore that the firm ought to hire more associates because the staff was overworked. "That's silly," Partner Moore replied. "No one is under pressure. There wasn't a light on when I left at 2 o'clock this morning."