White shoe firm

White-shoe firm is a phrase used to describe the leading professional services firms in America, particularly firms that have been in existence for more than a century and represent Fortune 500 companies. It frequently—but not always—refers to securities, law and management consulting firms, and frequently (but not always) refers to firms in New York City. A similar phrase, Magic Circle, refers to law firms in the UK, while the Big Six refers to leading Australian law firms and Seven Sisters to similar Canadian firms.

Etymology and Definition of White-Shoe

According to William Safire, the phrase derives from "white bucks", a type of laced suede or buckskin shoe with a red sole, long popular among upper-class New Englanders, especially at Ivy League colleges.^[1] Originally, it reflected a stereotype of old-line firms populated by WASPs, but the phrase has since become innocuous. In the case of investment banks (Goldman, Lazard, Lehman Brothers), the term referred to not only WASPs but also aristocratic Jews. However, it is still defined by Princeton University's Wordnet as "denoting a company or law firm owned and run by members of the WASP elite who are generally conservative," which shows that the original connotation has not changed entirely^{[citation needed]}.

Examples of white-shoe firms

The following firms are often referred to as being white-shoe firms:

Investment Banks

• Goldman Sachs^[2]
• J.P. Morgan & Co.^[3][4]
• Morgan Stanley^[5]

M&A advisory firms

• Lazard^[6]
• Rothschild^[7]

Law firms

• Arnold & Porter ^[8]
• Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft^[9][10]
• Cravath, Swaine & Moore^[11]
• Chadbourne & Parke^[12]
• Covington & Burling ^[13]
• Davis Polk & Wardwell^[14]
• Debevoise & Plimpton^[15]
• Dewey & LeBoeuf^[16]
• Goodwin Procter ^[17]
• Hogan & Hartson ^[18]
• Hughes Hubbard & Reed^[19]
• Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy^[20]
• Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler ^[21]
• Ropes & Gray^[22]
• Shearman & Sterling^[23]
• Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett^[24]
• Sullivan & Cromwell^[25]
• White & Case ^[26]
• Willkie Farr & Gallagher ^[27]
• Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr ^[28]

The "new" white-shoe law firms

While the term "white-shoe" historically applied only to those law firms populated by WASPs, usage of the term has since been expanded to other top-rated prestigious law firms. Many of these firms were founded as a direct result of the exclusionary tendencies of the original white-shoe firms, which provided limited opportunities for Jewish and Catholic lawyers, as well as other non-WASPs.

• Cahill Gordon & Reindel^[29]
• Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton ^[30]
• Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson ^[31]
• Kaye Scholer ^[32]
• Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel ^[33]
• Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison^{[34] [35]}
• Proskauer Rose^{[36] [37] [38] [39]}
• Schulte Roth & Zabel ^[40]
• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom ^{[41] [42]}
• Strook & Strook & Lavan ^[43]
• Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz^[44]
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges ^{[45] [46] [47]}

Consulting firms

• Bain & Company
• Boston Consulting Group, The
• Mckinsey & Company

Note: while these three firms are known rather undisputedly as the "top three" strategy consulting firms, some contended that such firms as A.T. Kearney, Arthur D. Little, Booz & Company, and Monitor Group should also be considered white shoe. Rankings of these firms in Vault and Consulting Magazine varied from year to year, but they have never dethroned the top three firms in overall rankings.

Accounting firms

• PricewaterhouseCoopers^[48]
• Ernst and Young
• Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
• KPMG

Other uses of the term

A similar term in Australia, "white shoe brigade", has been used in the past to describe a group of Gold Coast property developers who backed, and benefitted from, former Queensland State Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. [1]

Related phrases

• Magic circle, seen as the five (or six) top law firms in the United Kingdom; also used to describe the top four Commercial Chambers at the Bar
• Global Quartet or Big Four, referring to members of the Magic Circle other than Slaughter and May as it has, in general, not pursued a policy of international expansion
• Seven Sisters, referring to the seven Canadian law firms considered to be the top tier
• Big Six, referring to six Australian law firms perceived to be the top tier
• Big Three, referring to three Texas law firms considered to be the top tier

Notes and references

External links

• Etymology
• Origin of phrase
• Article on White Shoe firms
• Article on the history of white-shoe firms vs. Jewish firms in New York City