White & Case

The Paris office commences operations again after being shuttered during World War II. White & Case LLP is one of the largest law firms in the world and in November 1999 ranked fifth among the International Financial Law Review list of fastest growing firms in the world, based on its annual growth rate of about 20 percent. Unlike most American-based law firms, White & Case operates numerous overseas offices to meet its clients needs. Sending its associates abroad helped White & Case avoid layoffs in the early 1990s, when many other large law firms released both associates and even partners as a way to deal with the nation's economic slump. According to a spokesperson in White & Case literature: 'International practice in the foundation of our firm.' The firm counsels clients on taxation, litigation and other means of dispute resolution, acquisitions and mergers, privatization, disputes over intellectual property issues, and virtually all areas of the law. Thus White & Case plays a major role in the increasingly globalized economy of the 21st century. The law firm of White & Case was founded in 1901 by Justin (J.) DuPratt White and George B. Case. White was born and raised in New York; he graduated from Cornell University in 1890 and was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1892. He would go on to become one of Cornell's distinguished alumni, and the university would later establish an honorary chair, known as the J. DuPratt White Professor of Law, at their law school. Case, on the other hand, was a graduate of Yale, where he studied law and also played baseball, reputedly inventing baseball's 'squeeze play' during his tenure on the Yale team. Both White and Case were well-connected socially and in business circles, and from the start their firm, which they established in New York City, was regarded as 'white shoe,' or formal and conservative. In 1903 the partners gained an important client when they were employed to provide the legal counsel necessarily to establish the Bankers Trust Company. Bankers Trust was founded by J.P. Morgan and other prominent financiers to provide trust services to customers of state and national banks throughout the United States. Bankers Trust, later known as Bankers Trust New York Corporation, would remain the firm's single largest client in the decades ahead. Case, in particular, proved a valuable resource for J.P. Morgan, accompanying him and advising him during 1912 antitrust hearings with the House Banking and Currency subcommittee. Though they boasted an influential, prosperous clientele, including Bankers Trust and U.S. Steel, White & Case grew slowly in work force during the prewar years. According to Hubbell's Legal Directory , the firm consisted of five lawyers in 1913. In 1926 the partnership opened its Paris office. Three years later White & Case had a work force of 14 lawyers. Unlike many businesses that declined or disappeared in the Great Depression of the 1930s, White & Case increased in size to include 21 lawyers by 1940, according to the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory. Some of the companies represented by White & Case after World War II included Seagram's, Federal Paper Board, Detroit Edison, Heublein, and Lincoln National Life Insurance Company. With the death of White in 1939 and Case in 1955, the firm's key leader for years was Joseph M. Hartfield. Hartfield had been with White and Case since the early days, present on their work force roster in 1913. He was one of the first, and of only a few, Jewish attorneys to work on Wall Street during this time; he was also a colorful character, a flamboyant bachelor, known as the Colonel since his days as a young man in Kentucky. Recalling Hartfield's strengths during his tenure at White & Case, one attorney told author Paul Hoffman that Hartfield 'was the best damned business-getter I ever saw.' Hartfield died in 1964 at age 82. Another key White & Case leader after World War II was Orison S. Marden. A prominent litigator, Mard