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Overview

Introduction

You know you’ve made it in the legal industry when you’ve landed a spot at Latham. The firm is a global leader across dozens of practice areas, with over 3,000 lawyers in 14 countries, and recruits the best of the best. This globalization allows Latham to service clients with the finest legal resources, regardless of location. Those seeking autonomy to shape their practice plus extensive training and support will be pleased with their opportunities at this legal giant.

Firm Stats


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Total No. Attorneys (2023)

3K - 3.5K

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No. of Partners Named (2023)

68

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Featured Rankings

Vault Law 100
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No. of 1st Year Associates Hired (2022)

343


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No. of Summer Associates (2023)

313 total (283 2Ls; 301Ls)


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Base Salary

1st year: $225,000
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Vault Verdict

Latham looms large in many ways, with more than 3,000 lawyers and a stellar reputation for quality work. The hiring process is competitive, with emphasis placed on law school attended, grades, journal work, clerkships, work experience, diversity, personality, and professionalism. People are collegial and supportive, and they enjoy social time together while respecting others who want family time. Conscious efforts are made to orient and welcome laterals. Partners treat associates well and as equals, while the firm emphasizes communication and transparency. Associates enjoy great opportunities for professional development through the first-year academy, ongoing CLEs, multiple mentors, and real-world experience. Lean teams mean that associates often do work above and below their exp...

Firm's Response

A career at Latham & Watkins will give you the opportunity to do some of the best work of your life. Opportunities are boundless—Latham’s Unassigned Program allows you to follow your intellectual curiosity to explore the firm’s market-leading practices before choosing your department, practice, or industry focus. You’re encouraged ...

About the Firm

Latham is one of the world’s largest law firms. With more than 3,000 attorneys in 30 offices around the world, Latham practices in all the major jurisdictions in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and regularly represents companies doing business in Latin America and Africa. The firm is a global leader in corporate transactions, environmental law, finance matters, litigations and trials, and tax services.

Small Shop Gets Super-Sized

Dana Latham—former commissioner of the IRS—and Paul Watkins founded the firm in 1934 to focus on tax and employment law. In the latter part of the 20th century, the firm began aggressively and steadily expanding around the globe. The firm’s largest office is its New York location, an iconic space on the Avenue of the Americas. Despite its sprawlin...

Associate Reviews

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  • “Everyone is nice and collegial—people genuinely want to help each other and strangers will always pick up your phone call/email you back. Lawyers socialize with each other both at sponsored events and after hours—I spend time with someone from the firm outside of work hours almost every week, and that's been the case for the past eight years.”
  • “People are very friendly and relaxed here. Everyone works hard, but they also respect each other's requests for days off. There is a culture of providing a lot of training to new associates—they provide a lot of support towards the development of lawyering skills.”
  • “We don't socialize after hours regularly but do arrange happy hours from time to time, as well as other in-office events and to celebrate holidays or other milestones. The culture firmwide is first and foremost one of mutual respect—the firm goes to great lengths to ensure that partners, counsel, and associates uphold this value in all circumstances, including when working under intense client demands.”
  • “From my view, Latham people are driven, ambitious, and go-getter perfectionists, but they generally manage to balance that with being nice, professional, and respectful. Latham is quite social and does a lot to get together outside of work, but one of the cultural points I appreciate most is that Latham is flexible—you don't have to be at every event, you don't have to be super social, and if you have a family to get home to, people seem to genuinely get it.”

Why Work Here


We Are Driven by Our Values and Culture. We have a unique and special culture, based around our core values of transparency, inclusion, innovation, and collaboration.

We Are Enriched by Our Diversity. Our firm reflects a rich mixture of races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, religions, culture, socioeconomic backgrounds, and primary languages. This diversity makes us who we are. 

We Build Careers. From day one, we provide our associates with the mentoring, training, feedback, and career guidance, they need to be at the top of their field.

We Are Flexible. We recognize that our lawyers have varied interests outside of the office, so our policies reflect a commitment to fostering a healthy work-life balance. We provide generous parental leave policies, a reduced–pace program, and cutting-edge technology that helps help lawyers manage their workload.

We Give Back. As one of the world’s largest providers of pro bono legal services, we take seriously our commitment to give back to the communities where we live and work.

Diversity at Latham & Watkins

"Latham is a leader in developing, promoting and implementing processes to ensure lawyers are hired, trained and promoted fairly, consistent with our goals of equal opportunity and diversity in the practice of law. To enhance opportunities for our lawyers from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, we continually and critically assess all facets of our lawyer programs —from initial recruiting through progression to partnership— to ensure that all of our lawyers can develop into top practitioners and succeed at the firm...."

Getting Hired Here

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  • “The firm appears to be transitioning to a pre-OCI interview process. There are certain ‘feeder schools,’ but they will consider candidates from other schools. The firm seems to prioritize/appreciate prior work experience and diversity. Personality and [values] fit are always considered.”
  • “Latham values all the things other top firms do in terms of grades, clerkships, journals, etc., but I think Latham places a lot of emphasis on personality and [values] fit.”
  • “As a lateral/clerk hire, my impression of the hiring process is that the firm is trying to identify qualified candidates that fit with the firm culture. There are no "X spots remaining" that the firm needs to fill, so the recruiting team has little pressure to hire or not to hire. I see a diversity of law schools, journal experience, and prior work experience in the associates I work with. Clerkship experience tends to be more prevalent in the Supreme Court & Appellate practice group (as one would expect).”
  • “One interesting thing about Latham is they are interested more in the person than the credentials. Everyone who makes it past a screener is qualified on paper. Latham looks to see if the person is a nice person. There is a very specific type of personality they look for—one who is not just hard working, but also respectful and professional.”

Perks & Benefits


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