We’ve been going through the Vault practice-group rankings recently and have come to the conclusion that some make sense and some don’t.
Antitrust seemed pretty reasonable. Bankruptcy made no sense. Litigation was in the ballpark, but we definitely had some questions.
The problem seems to be that the rankings are ALL based on prestige, not a whole lot of real thought.
We think that popularity-contest mentality is reflected in Wachtell’s being #1 in “General Corporate Practice.”
They’re overrated.
We explain why, after the jump.
First and foremost, we think Wachtell is excellent. They’re arguably the best.
At what they do.
We have no qualms about their being the #1 law firm in the prestige rankings.
But they barely have a “general” corporate practice.
They effectively don’t do any deals in broad swaths of “general” corporate. A fundamental precept of the firm’s model is to abstain from commodity work.
Think about it.
Other than as relates to M&A, the firm almost never does capital markets work, mining, outsourcing, bankruptcy, or real estate.
Of course there are exceptions, but the exceptions are for unique deals (e.g., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac offerings). The firm doesn’t regularly do those kinds of transactions unless there’s some special reason to do a particular deal.
When they do “general” corporate work, they do a great job at it.
But they’re not generalists and they don’t pretend to be. They get involved in transactions on a case-by-case basis (no pun intended) if there’s something interesting about that particular deal, not because they generally handle matters in the full range of corporate practices.
Here’s the top 10:
Every other one of the firms in the top 10 can make a case for having that broad-based practice that justifies a top ranking for “general” corporate work. Of course, some are stronger in some areas than others, but they all will handle pretty much any corporate deal in any corporate practice, even the cookie-cutter IPOs that Wachtell eschews.
As you’ll see later, “general” corporate is really just a proxy for M&A (or further proof of our belief that M&A is top of the deal food chain).
What do you think? Are we reading too much into this as a ranking of “general” corporate? Or even if we are, does Wachtell’s excellence on the rare occasions it steps outside of M&A warrant the ranking?
