Expansion of geographic reach
Profile: Bob Grondine
Widening range of opportunities
Profile: Eberhard Meincke
Building the client base
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Culture
CHAPTER 10
The White 
&
 Case Way
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As noted in Chapter Eight, when Jim Hurlock became Chair of the Firm in 1980, it had about 150 lawyers in its New York office and an additional 35 lawyers based in much smaller offices in Paris, Brussels, London, Washington, D.C. and Hong Kong. Almost all of its lawyers were U.S. nationals, and almost all of its clients were U.S. entities. When he stepped down as Chair 20 years later, the Firm had more than 1,000 lawyers of more than 60 nationalities in 31 offices in 24 countries, including all the world’s major commercial and financial centers, and a multinational client base.
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Award named for partner Maurice McLoughlin
to recognize unusual or noteworthy achievements of individuals at the Firm. Note the misspelling of his name on the award! White & Case’s founders established a culture and Firm ethos that has endured to the present day.

Maurice McLoughlin went to college at Holy Cross and obtained his LL.B. at Harvard. He originally did real estate work at the Firm, and was on the team that represented the lenders in the sale of the Empire State Building in 1951, but eventually became an active member of the Firm’s trusts and estates practice. He impressed all those around him with his humility, straightforwardness and sense of humor. For many years, he was the master of ceremonies at Firm events, including the annual golf outing at which all those participating were recognized, whatever their role or ability. After his death in 1975, a group of his partners decided to present an award named after him to a partner, associate or staff member who during the year had done something unusual or noteworthy that the group thought McLoughlin would have found particularly interesting. The last recipient was Sims Farr in 1991. Prior recipients were partners Jack Johnston, Maureen Donovan, Web Sandford, Tom Ramseur, Mort Moskin, Jack McNally, Don Madden and Allan Gropper; counsel Burt Ryan; New York office manager Dale Laning; and head of legal employment Joanne Brewster Blakemore. Partners who knew him well believe McLoughlin would have found it particularly amusing that his name on the silver bowl is misspelled!
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Maurice McLoughlin
Maurice McLoughlin went to college at Holy Cross and obtained his LL.B. at Harvard. He originally did real estate work at the Firm, and was on the team that represented the lenders in the sale of the Empire State Building in 1951, but eventually became an active member of the Firm’s trusts and estates practice. He impressed all those around him with his humility, straightforwardness and sense of humor.
When DuPratt White and George Case founded their eponymous law firm, they did not put in writing what type of firm they wished to create. They did not even have a partnership agreement for 14 years, much less a document that summarized the “culture” or “core values” of the Firm. For one thing, they would have been far too busy as they started up the Firm; for another, they probably felt there was no need. The way the Firm operated, how people treated one another and the atmosphere in that first Nassau Street office were set by the founders—the types of people and lawyers they were, their backgrounds and the force of their personalities.
Years later, however, when George Case wrote to the Firm’s partners marking the Firm’s 50th anniversary in 1951, he undoubtedly was speaking of culture and core values when he said:
The founders, culture and core values
I trust that the partners, and every associate, will try in the future, as in the past, to always be honest, both intellectually and in material things; to be thorough in every task undertaken; to be tolerant of the views of clients and all others; to avoid selfishness and meanness; to always keep uppermost in your minds and hearts the high professional obligations as members of the Bar; and, last but not least, to practice at all times humility.
It is not surprising that Case thought of humility as underpinning the culture of the Firm. Both he and his co-founder, DuPratt White, often identified people from humble backgrounds to join their fledgling firm. Both of them had modest upbringings, and it is likely they were drawn to those of similar origins.
The founders were not impressed by convention. Indeed, they consciously took on people who did not fit the mold. The early recruits, from Colonel Hartfield to Monty Hatch, were strikingly different characters in whom DuPratt White and George Case recognized initiative and self-motivation. That is not to say that the founders turned away everyone who came up through the more conventional career path. The Firm certainly had its fair share of Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School graduates, indicative of the founders’ recognition that they needed to recruit from among the best and brightest. That made for a diverse and eclectic mix of individuals who constituted the Firm as it expanded in the early decades and beyond. Many people have since singled out this openness and diversity of the Firm as one of the things that attracted them to work at White & Case.
Partners of the Firm at the time Hurlock became Chair in 1980 were pleased and proud that the Firm had a collegial and collaborative culture and an entrepreneurial spirit that gave each partner considerable responsibility for developing his or her practice.

None of the partners, Hurlock included, wanted that culture to be changed or that spirit to be diminished. The story of how, 35 years later, the collegial and collaborative culture and spirit of entrepreneurialism have been nurtured and refined, but remain defining characteristics of the Firm, is testament to the strength of the values that underpin the Firm.
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letter from george case to the firm on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, 1951

Joe Bennett was hired in March 1902 as a 16-year-old office boy and “reported for work in short trousers, at a salary of $3 per week,” according to the 50th anniversary history of the Firm. Starting in an entry-level position, Bennett became the Firm’s bookkeeper, then its managing clerk and, at the urging of White, attended New York Law School at night. Gaining admission to the Bar in 1908, he continued with the Firm as an associate and was made a partner in 1917, specializing in banking and corporate law for clients such as Bankers Trust, Combustion Engineering and McGraw-Hill. In time, Bennett became one of the Firm’s most respected lawyers, heading its management committee in the early 1940s. He continued as an active partner until his death in 1954 at age 68.
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Joe Bennett
Joe Bennett was hired in March 1902 as a 16-year-old office boy and “reported for work in short trousers, at a salary of $3 per week,” according to the 50th anniversary history of the Firm. Starting in an entry-level position, Bennett became the Firm’s bookkeeper, then its managing clerk and, at the urging of White, attended New York Law School at night.
Equally, the founders were believers in meritocracy and worked to create a culture in which anyone, no matter what their origins, background, religion or status, could succeed. Those who worked hard and showed talent and commitment to serving the Firm’s clients could expect to be rewarded. There is no better example of this than Joe Bennett, who started as an office boy in 1902 and rose to become a highly respected partner and head of the Firm’s management committee.
The founders’ belief in meritocracy was one of the things that led them and their successors to give lawyers responsibility early in their careers if they earned it and could handle it. There are many examples of associates being given responsibility for a transaction, or a client, or even managing an office that would never have happened at more established law firms. Jim Hurlock never forgot the opportunity he was given by Lowell Wadmond as a second-year associate to lead a major project for the Firm’s client, International Minerals & Chemical Corporation, in India. The project, a fertilizer plant that was the largest public/private construction project in Indian history as of that time, involved a longstanding argument with the Indian government before finally coming to fruition in 1967. Responsibility for managing the Istanbul and Ankara offices was given, at different times, to associates Peter Finlay and Hugh Verrier, both of whom had been in the Firm’s International Lawyers Program. Later on still, Hank Amon and associates Dan Arbess and Steve Harder were given free rein to build the Firm’s business in Eastern Europe.
White & Case also made an early mark by taking on challenging assignments that required innovative thinking and, if required, a new approach. The legal structure of the Firm’s most prominent client, Bankers Trust, was itself innovative. The documentation drafted by Irving Olds in World War I to ensure supplies of armaments to the British and French and by Monty Hatch in World War II, which created U.S. government guarantees for loans to defense contractors, were further examples of White & Case innovation. More recently, in 2004–2007, White & Case achieved prominence by successfully suing the U.S. Department of Justice in the Stolt-Nielsen antitrust case, flying in the face of conventional wisdom in antitrust matters that it is unwise to take on the U.S. government. John Reiss, head of the global M&A practice, has put it this way: “From the very beginning, the Firm’s lawyers have been prepared, individually and as a team, to branch out, to try new things and to move into uncharted territory.”
Hand in hand with innovation was entrepreneurship. The Firm started life with excellent contacts—none more so than Harry Davison—but to succeed, it needed to win new clients. The entrepreneurial drive, which came in particular from George Case, was inculcated into those who followed him at the Firm. In a sense, the Firm had no alternative. Competing with longer-established law firms on Wall Street who could rely on entrenched relationships with the largest corporations and financial institutions required the Firm to go the extra mile to win the new, emerging businesses and to offer something different from the existing law firms. And the spirit of entrepreneurship was on full display in 1980 when Jim Hurlock set the Firm on an internationalist path, with all of its uncertainty and risks. More than a hundred years after the foundation of the Firm, the White & Case partners still look for business opportunities that others miss. Having worked hard to win clients, the Firm’s partners and other lawyers worked hard to keep them. And they did. Clients repaid the excellent service they received with loyalty. The founders were adamant, however, that the Firm should only take on clients that had the same values as they did—of absolute integrity, service to the community and care for their employees—and not just the pursuit of profit. The Firm would also not let itself be pushed around. The story goes that White & Case lost General Motors as a client, after its chairman Alfred Sloan instructed George Case not to represent an entrepreneur named Robert Young because “they didn’t like him.” Case responded that the Firm would act for whomever it pleased. Ambitious, meritocratic, innovative and entrepreneurial the Firm may have been, but it was not in the founders’ nature to brag about it. Maintaining a low profile was the preferred stance, as indeed it was for most law firms of the day. It was just that White & Case took it to an extreme. There was a simple, and reasonable, explanation. The founders believed that allowing the Firm’s name to appear in the media might violate client confidentiality. Indeed, until the late 1930s, the partners’ biographies did not even appear in
Marquis Who’s Who in America
, although numerous other Wall Street lawyers had long since allowed their biographical data to be included in this popular reference work.
The founders’ belief in meritocracy was one of the things that led them and their successors to give lawyers responsibility early in their careers if they earned it and could handle it.
A number of White & Case lawyers served their country with distinction during World War II. Jack Johnston was one of these and was also one of the most courageous individuals in the history of the Firm. He attended Princeton before leaving for military service as an Army lieutenant. During World War II, while leading his men under enemy fire, he stepped on a mine, losing both his legs at the knees. He was awarded the Silver Star, one of the nation’s highest military honors, for gallantry in action. Johnston subsequently learned to walk on prostheses and was able to play tennis and golf. He returned to Princeton after the war, graduated in 1947 and attended Columbia Law School, earning his LL.B. in 1949. He signed on with White & Case from law school and became a partner in 1962. He died in 2003 at age 80.
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Jack Johnston
A number of White & Case lawyers served their country with distinction during World War II. Jack Johnston was one of these and was also one of the most courageous individuals in the history of the Firm. He attended Princeton before leaving for military service as an Army lieutenant.
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75th anniversary dinner at the Pierre, Manhattan, 1976

Even after World War II, as the legal profession’s attitude about talking with the media became somewhat more relaxed, White & Case stuck to its guns. Many firms began to engage in limited forms of publicity, but not White & Case. Colonel Hartfield remained unyielding in his view that it was unethical, regardless of circumstances or changing professional mores, to talk publicly about the Firm or its work. A memorable example occurred in 1958, when
Fortune
published an article on the top Wall Street firms. Among the major firms, White & Case—then the third largest, with 109 lawyers—was conspicuous by its absence.
To be fair, there was a basis for the Firm’s decision to stay out of public sight. In 1908, the American Bar Association adopted its canons of professional ethics, the first national standards for ethical conduct governing lawyers. Canon 27 banned lawyer advertising and solicitation, permitting nothing more than business cards. This ban was subsequently endorsed by the highest courts of most states. Although directory listings and limited advertising became generally acceptable over time, the prohibitions continued for nearly 70 years until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that bans on lawyer advertising violated the First Amendment–based doctrine of commercial free speech.
This action by the Supreme Court was followed in 1979 by the founding of
The American Lawyer
. The ranking in
Am Law
of U.S. law firms by size, revenues and profits, among other measures, was recognition of the growth and importance of the legal services sector and also accelerated the pace at which large law firms began to develop and expand their marketing efforts and business development teams. Given its historical adversity to publicity, White & Case may have been slower than some to react to this more open environment, but over the past 30 years it has built large communication and business development teams.
Above all, DuPratt White and George Case created a firm in which the prevailing ethos was one in which people put the welfare of the Firm above their own self-interest. People must have respect and regard for one another. Collegiality and collaboration, not internal competition, were the goals to which everyone should aspire. Lowell Wadmond, another of the 1930s’ group of partners, put it this way: “The important thing about White & Case to me is the esprit de corps. In this firm, there is a bond between us all.” This bond included a strong sense of stewardship in all partners to leave the Firm in better shape than they found it when they first walked in the door, for the benefit of future generations.
As he mapped out his strategy for developing a global law firm, Jim Hurlock knew that it would be necessary to have the best local lawyers in each of the jurisdictions in which the Firm practiced. To have the best local lawyers meant being able to offer them full partnership. Yet there was strong internal resistance. Many partners believed that White & Case should remain an exclusively U.S. firm, even while expanding overseas. Hurlock persisted, and won the argument when, in 1982, Jean-Luc Boussard became the first non-U.S. national to become a White & Case partner. The following year, Gillis Wetter was also admitted to the partnership. Wetter became the first non-U.S. national to head a White & Case office when he opened the Stockholm office in 1983. Claes Zettermarck joined the Stockholm office later in 1983, becoming a partner in 1986. The strategy of recruiting the very best local lawyers for Stockholm and the other non-U.S. offices that were opened thereafter helped to win over the doubters who worried that the quality of the Firm’s legal services might be undermined by absorbing lawyers from other countries, some of which were perceived to have less developed legal systems. The non-U.S. partners hired laterally and promoted internally proved over the years that they were every bit the equal of their U.S. peers, and the mutual respect that developed among the U.S. and non-U.S. partners helped foster the collegiality and collaboration among the Firm’s lawyers around the world, without which the Firm could not have achieved its global aspirations. Wetter and Zettermarck arrived at the Firm in Stockholm at the beginning of the trend in the 1980s for partners in the United States to move between law firms. Lateral hiring was not a new concept but, from the 1980s onward, became a recognized, if not always accepted, practice. Some trace the start of this trend to the publication in
The American Lawyer
of its estimates of the financial performance of law firms and, in particular, the measure of profits per partner. Human nature being what it is, lawyers who spotted an opportunity to earn more at other firms felt less reticence about moving and thereby jettisoning firm loyalties. Somewhat paradoxically, Hurlock, himself a fierce loyalist, saw there were benefits from lateral hires. He knew he would have to bring partners in laterally to run and staff the non-U.S. offices that the Firm would be opening as it expanded abroad. He also believed he would have to look laterally for partners to help grow the New York office to the size necessary to support a global network of offices. The Firm added lateral hires at a steady pace in pursuit of its global objectives, taking care to assure that lateral candidates were not only good lawyers but also had personal attributes and characteristics that would enable them to assimilate easily into the Firm’s culture. Hurlock also encouraged U.S. lawyers who were moving to non-U.S. offices to agree to long-term or indefinite stays. John Riggs had already become, in 1976, the first U.S. partner to announce his intention to reside abroad, in his case in Paris, for the rest of his career, and George Crozer would spend more than 20 years in Asia, divided between Hong Kong and Jakarta. Even before he became Chair of the Firm, Hurlock had objected to the practice of requiring U.S. associates stationed at a non-U.S. office to return to the New York office for about two years to let the partners there “look them over one last time” before making them partners. In 1976, Hank Amon was the first U.S. associate to become a partner while working outside the United States.
The key components of the culture remained: commitment to clients; collegiality, collaboration and teamwork; entrepreneurialism; a willingness to try new things; and a strong sense of stewardship.
Jean-Luc Boussard became the first non-U.S. national partner of White & Case on October 1, 1982. He joined White & Case in 1975 after responding to an ad the Firm published in
Le Monde
for French lawyers fluent in English. Prior to that, he taught at London and Paris universities. His major interest was the practice of comparative law and, in particular, comparative public law. He later remarked that he came to White & Case in pursuit of his “dream to take part in the creation of a human community of people from different origins eager to live together under common and, for the most part, unwritten rules of ethics and friendship.” Boussard represented many large French and international banks. He worked with Crédit Lyonnais for almost 20 years, including on what was then the largest bank reorganization in Europe and a major litigation conducted in eight European countries. He was a key member of the Firm’s multipractice, multioffice team in massive cross-border litigation brought by Crédit Lyonnais arising out of the fraudulent acquisition of the MGM film studio. Boussard was head of the Firm’s Paris office for many years, retiring in 2006. In 2008, he was elected mayor of Barneville-Carteret, a small city on the shore of Normandy.
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Jean-Luc Boussard
Jean-Luc Boussard became the first non-U.S. national partner of White & Case on October 1, 1982. He joined White & Case in 1975 after responding to an ad the Firm published in
Le Monde
for French lawyers fluent in English. Prior to that, he taught at London and Paris universities.
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The evolution to multiculturalism
“The important thing about White & Case to me is the esprit de corps. In this firm, there is a bond between us all.”
Lowell Wadmond
Hurlock also formalized and intensified the Firm’s International Lawyers Program (ILP). Until the Firm began expanding abroad in the 1980s, the Firm used the ILP to host in-house lawyers sent by clients and to attract non-U.S. lawyers to the Firm for a year after they had obtained an LL.M. from a U.S. law school or had other credentials reflecting an interest in being an international lawyer. These lawyers would usually return to their home countries after their year at the Firm, and many of them joined law firms in their home countries that became correspondent law firms of the Firm. Some of these lawyers, however, came and stayed, including Peter Finlay from Ireland and Hugh Verrier from Canada. As the Firm added more offices abroad, it shifted the focus of the ILP to the recruitment of talented non-U.S. lawyers to spend one or more years in New York, another U.S. office or London, then relocate to one of the Firm’s offices outside the United States.

As the Firm grew in size and geographical reach, in many ways it looked and felt like a different firm from the one it had been when Hurlock became Chair in 1980. It had many offices rather than a few. It had lawyers of many nationalities. Most of its practices had become global. At its core, however, the key components of the culture remained: commitment to clients; collegiality, collaboration and teamwork; entrepreneurialism; a willingness to try new things; and a strong sense of stewardship. “It was a very welcoming firm,” recalls Francis Fitzherbert-Brockholes, an English barrister who initially joined the Firm in its New York office in 1978. “On my first Friday, I remember a couple of quite senior associates coming into my office in the evening and inviting me out for a drink. The partners in New York had a tradition of inviting a couple of associates to join them at their monthly lunch at the Windows on the World restaurant on the top of the World Trade Center. One was made to feel included.” The same was true for the lawyers from firms with whom the Firm merged. Eberhard Meincke, from the Feddersen Laule firm that merged with White & Case in 2000, was struck by the warmth of the reception he and his colleagues received: “We had assumed that our cultures and working practices would be similar, and that would facilitate integration, but the process was undoubtedly made easier by the open attitude of the White & Case partners.”

While the Firm’s culture may have been well understood by the Firm’s partners through the years, when Duane Wall succeeded Hurlock as head of the Firm in 2000, he felt that explicitly talking about the culture of the Firm on a regular basis would be a good way to nurture and reinforce it. An opportunity to begin the discussion arose at the global partner meeting in Bonita Springs in 2003, Wall’s second as managing partner. At that meeting, Wall and the senior leadership team included adherence to the Firm’s culture as one of the eight criteria of success by which the Firm would measure its progress toward becoming the leading global law firm. Delegated the task of expressing the Firm’s culture and core values, Rick Holwell, then head of the litigation practice and also a member of the management committee, spoke at the meeting about the Firm’s culture and core values and also shared with his partners what he called his personal six “commandments.”
1. Give your partners the benefit of the doubt. 2. Never turn down a request for help. 3. Leave more on the table than you take away. 4. Remember: This is not about the money. 5. Remember: This is all about the money. 6. Remember how you got here.
Rick Holwell
“These commandments were light-hearted, yet serious, enjoinders to the partners joining the Firm,” Holwell notes. “We felt that they must be observed if the special character of the Firm was to be maintained, the more so as it became bigger, more atomized and, as the market dictated, more like a business organization than a partnership.”
Martha Mills left the Firm in March 1967 to become a volunteer lawyer with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law at its office in Jackson, Mississippi. The Lawyers Committee was formed in 1963 at the initiative of President Kennedy, and one of its first objectives was to resist legal efforts to maintain segregation in Mississippi. Mills became a permanent staff member of the Lawyers Committee, remaining at the Jackson office for two years, then spending four months at the Fayetteville office under constant threat of fire-bombing or death. She then returned to her native state of Illinois and served for three years as chief counsel of the Lawyers Committee in Cairo, working on civil rights matters and helping develop a program for migrant workers. In 1971, Mills returned to her home city of Chicago, engaged in private practice for a number of years and held various judgeships, including on the Cook County Circuit Court—Juvenile Justice Division, the Circuit’s Parentage and Child Support Court, and the Cook County Expedited Child Support Court.

In 1989, Mills became the second Illinois woman to be inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers. In 2000, she was named by the Illinois Bar Association as one of the 12 inaugural Laureates of the Academy of Illinois Lawyers.
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Martha Wood Mills
Martha Mills left the Firm in March 1967 to become a volunteer lawyer with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law at its office in Jackson, Mississippi. The Lawyers Committee was formed in 1963 at the initiative of President Kennedy, and one of its first objectives was to resist legal efforts to maintain segregation in Mississippi.
The second woman lawyer, Rosine Lorotte, joined the Firm in New York in September 1965 after receiving an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. She worked in the New York office for about four months, sharing an office with Mills, then returned to her native country of France to work in the Firm’s Paris office. Lorotte had been surprised to find so few women at Harvard Law School and was equally surprised that she was only the second woman lawyer at White & Case. By that time, it was fairly commonplace to find women in French law schools and firms.

When Lorotte arrived at the Paris office, it had been reopened for only five years and had just six lawyers, including resident partner Vernon Munroe. One of the challenges in growing the office was the lack of French lawyers who spoke English well enough to function on complicated legal matters. Lorotte recalls that she was a pioneer in going to Harvard for an LL.M. to improve her English as well as gain familiarity with the common law legal system. With so few qualified French lawyers available, Lorotte recalls that everyone in the office was pleased when Jean-Luc Boussard was recruited in 1975 through an ad the Firm placed in
Le Monde
. When she retired in 2000, the office had 16 partners and 41 associates. During her 35-year career, the office had grown and become multicultural along with the Firm, a key event being Boussard’s becoming the first non-U.S. national partner of the Firm in 1982.
Maureen Donovan was the Firm’s third woman lawyer. She arrived at the Firm in September 1966 after receiving her LL.B. with honors from Fordham Law School at night, where she also edited the
Fordham Law Review
. Having been educated by the Ursulines, she never viewed gender as a handicap, although, as Tom Kiernan once pointed out at the Creek Club (where White & Case golf outings were once held), “being Irish” might have been. As she reflects, her gender was never an issue at White & Case—either for her or for the Firm. “Contrary to what I had expected after interviewing at a number of firms, we were hired because we were smart, industrious and on the ball, not because of gender, religion or background. People’s political or religious beliefs were of no consequence.” And, she readily admits, she had become comfortable with “the system”—male-dominated firms, clients and courts—having spent four years as managing clerk at a law firm at One Chase Manhattan Plaza that was involved in the electrical industry treble damages actions and oil companies’ antitrust woes.
Laura Hoguet, the Firm’s fourth woman lawyer, arrived in September 1967 and was struck by the comparison between White & Case and other law firms when it came to recruiting women. She had graduated from Radcliffe College,
magna cum laude
, and received her J.D. from the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the law review. Despite her academic credentials, many firms showed no interest in talking with her about a job. A partner at one large firm said his firm had already hired two women that year and did not have room for another. At the suggestion of a friend, she applied for, and received, an interview with a White & Case lawyer who was visiting Chicago. She was then invited to go to New York for further interviews. She received a job offer the same day the interviews were held and joined the Firm as an associate on graduation from law school.
Early in her career, many male lawyers found her presence unusual or did not always take her seriously. “Once when I was a young lawyer,” she recollects, “I had to present an appeal in the Second Circuit. Afterwards, a government lawyer [on the opposing side] came up to me and said, ‘I never heard a woman argue before.’ People used to say things like that all the time. They were quite unselfconscious about it.” However, she received considerable support from her male colleagues at White & Case: “Nobody in the Firm ever showed the slightest doubt that I could do whatever I wanted to do.”
Perhaps not all, however. It was proposed in the 1970s that the Firm stage a celebratory dinner for an old client, Arthur Young & Company, at Links, at that time a male-only club. To get around the ban on women, one of the Firm’s partners suggested that Hoguet plead that she could not come because she had a headache. Senior partner Hal Fales was outraged at this suggestion, responding to the partner in question: “Not on your life. We have never had even an inquiry about treatment of women in this firm and we don’t intend to risk a run-in with the city, state or federal anti-discrimination folks. Besides, the story would be out in under a week and our name would be mud in every law school in the land. Finally, Laura is our partner.” The dinner was held at another club.
These four women lawyers were the pioneers who paved the way for those who came after them, slowly at first, then at an accelerating pace. The Firm launched a formal women’s initiative in its U.S. offices in 2004 and rolled it out globally in 2009. In 2016, 38 percent of the Firm’s more than 2,100 lawyers were women, as were 15 percent of the Firm’s partners. Thirty-six percent of the new partners elected in the fall of 2015 were women, an all-time high.
For much of her 35-year career at White & Case, Rosine Lorotte worked on a flexible schedule, somewhat unusual at the time, that enabled her to maintain an active practice while devoting more time to her children than would have otherwise been possible. In her practice, she worked with bank clients, including Bankers Trust and First National Bank of Chicago, and on a variety of corporate and financial matters, including the rescheduling of sovereign debt of countries in Africa and project financings in the mining industry. She served as administrative partner of the Paris office for eight years. Lorotte originated the idea of the Business Law Scholarship that in 2016 was awarded by the Paris office for the 22nd consecutive year. The scholarship is ordinarily divided among several recipients, enabling them to internationalize their academic performance by continuing their studies at a non-French university of their choice. Lorotte has many fond memories of colleagues and clients. Tom Ramseur invited her to have her wedding reception in his apartment in Paris. Paul Pennoyer bequeathed her $3,500 because she had helped him with the settlement of a wealthy U.S. client’s estate in Paris. And a client once gave her a bunch of daffodils for helping him recover a small government pension payment. She retired in 2000.
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Rosine Lorotte
For much of her 35-year career at White & Case, Rosine Lorotte worked on a flexible schedule, somewhat unusual at the time, that enabled her to maintain an active practice while devoting more time to her children than would have otherwise been possible. In her practice, she worked with bank clients, including Bankers Trust and First National Bank of Chicago, and on a variety of corporate and financial matters, including the rescheduling of sovereign debt of countries in Africa and project financings in the mining industry. She served as administrative partner of the Paris office for eight years.
The first women lawyers
The move toward multiculturalism that began in earnest when Hurlock became Chair of the Firm had been preceded by about a decade and a half by another development that reflected the political, legal and social developments of the time and added to the Firm’s diversity: Women began to join large New York law firms.

Although White & Case had prided itself from the beginning on having a diverse set of characters in its midst, it had been as traditional and conventional as most other large New York law firms in that these characters had all been men.

This changed in August 1965, when Martha Mills (then Wood) became the first woman lawyer at the Firm after receiving her J.D. from University of Minnesota Law School. Mills recalls receiving a letter from Don Flinn containing what Flinn described in the letter as an “enthusiastic offer.”

While Mills never felt any animosity toward women lawyers from her colleagues at the Firm, she realized she was under constant scrutiny from those inside and outside the Firm to determine if she had good lawyering skills, whether her colleagues and clients would be willing to work with her and what courts would think of her.
Mills won some early converts among partners, including David Hartfield, who had her work with him on the Salad Oil Scandal. She also made converts outside the Firm. In a bankruptcy on which she worked, one of the men on the other side told her that he would never hire a woman lawyer, then later retained the Firm to handle a matter for his company and asked that Mills be assigned to work on it.
Maureen Driscoll Donovan started her career as a trusts and estates lawyer before concentrating on tax law and then specializing in fiduciary and asset management issues across a rapidly changing financial services spectrum. She and partner Owen Pell were invited in 2006 to address “The Exploding Fiduciary” at a workshop at the SEC sponsored by its Office of Risk Management. She represented clients including Bankers Trust, Chemical Bank, Smith Barney Trust Company (later incorporated into Citigroup), The Goldman Sachs Trust Company organized in 2000, and Deutsche Bank’s and Swiss Bank’s U.S. branches and registered investment adviser affiliates. She was an initial director of Swiss Bank Trust Company (now UBS Trust Company). She served as administrative partner of the Firm from 1985 to 1993.

Donovan has advised a number of nonprofit organizations on fiduciary issues, worked in community centers in the South Bronx and was president of a private foundation to encourage fledgling artists. She is partner of counsel at the Firm, and her current community service activity includes serving as vice-chair of the board of St. Barnabas Hospital, the Bronx, and chair of its finance committee, as well as on the board of the Deutsche Bank Microfinance Development Fund.
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Maureen Donovan
Maureen Driscoll Donovan started her career as a trusts and estates lawyer before concentrating on tax law and then specializing in fiduciary and asset management issues across a rapidly changing financial services spectrum. She and partner Owen Pell were invited in 2006 to address “The Exploding Fiduciary” at a workshop at the SEC sponsored by its Office of Risk Management. She represented clients including Bankers Trust, Chemical Bank, Smith Barney Trust Company (later incorporated into Citigroup), The Goldman Sachs Trust Company organized in 2000, and Deutsche Bank’s and Swiss Bank’s U.S. branches and registered investment adviser affiliates.
Laura Banfield Hoguet worked for almost three decades in the Firm’s litigation department. She worked with bank clients on a number of securities cases, including three involving Equity Funding, Lincoln Savings and securities issued by New York City, and played a major role on the Firm’s litigation team in Bankers Trust’s attack on the Glass-Steagall Act. She also won several jury trials for Firm clients such as Swiss Bank Corporation and McGraw-Hill in employment matters. After leaving the Firm she went on, with two others, to found a 20-plus lawyer business litigation firm.
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Laura Hoguet
Laura Banfield Hoguet worked for almost three decades in the Firm’s litigation department. She worked with bank clients on a number of securities cases, including three involving Equity Funding, Lincoln Savings and securities issued by New York City, and played a major role on the Firm’s litigation team in Bankers Trust’s attack on the Glass-Steagall Act.
Throughout its history, the Firm has gone to great lengths to preserve the culture established by the Firm’s founders. These efforts include the attention paid to everything associated with the outward appearance of the Firm, from the Firm’s logo to the design and furnishing of individual offices. When anyone steps into a White & Case office anywhere in the world, it is immediately recognizable as a White & Case office built and outfitted to the highest standards in the local market.

How, then, does White & Case ensure that the culture is sustained in a firm that is a billion-dollar global business with lawyers and offices spread around the globe in a changing environment where competition between law firms is intensifying and there is greater movement of partners between law firms?
First and foremost, perhaps, is this: White & Case partners share the common vision of being a global law firm. All of its partners are committed to the vision, having observed firsthand the value of being global. No partner would join laterally unless he or she was convinced that the Firm’s global resources would be of benefit to both the partner and his or her clients. And all partners understand that the advantages of being global cannot be achieved unless they work together closely across offices and borders. This shared common vision not only fosters collegiality and collaboration but also reinforces them as key characteristics of the Firm’s culture. Duane Wall believes the shared vision is one of the great strengths of the Firm and credits Hurlock with forging it among the Firm’s partners. “When Jim decided the Firm should aspire to be global,” Wall observes, “he had to get his partners to buy into the vision. Many were skeptical in the beginning, and we lost some nonbelievers along the way, but all were believers at the end of the journey.”
Partners also make an effort to find occasions to talk about the Firm’s culture and remember its history, both to keep alive the memory of DuPratt White and George Case as the first and among the best exemplars of the Firm’s culture and core values, and to help cultivate in all partners the strong sense of stewardship of the Firm and its culture that must continue to be passed down from generation to generation. For many years, these have included a global partner meeting twice a month, joining office by office via videoconference; a global partner meeting at a single venue every other year
(see Global Partner Meetings)
; and a new partner orientation and development program given each year to all new partners, including those joining laterally. The Firm also has a leadership training program for partners conducted by professors from the Harvard Law and Business Schools that focuses on motivational leadership and the role of partners in creating the culture of their firms.
Diversity
As the Firm globalized, its composition became more diverse, with lawyers and staff of an ever-greater number of nationalities and ethnicities. As Chair Hugh Verrier has put it: “We are a truly global law firm, with 37 offices in 26 countries around the world. Our people come from diverse backgrounds and speak more than 70 different languages. We value our diversity because it is essential to who we are, and we attract those who value different cultures, experiences, languages and viewpoints.”
At the same time, the Firm recognizes that it must be proactive to maintain a truly diverse and inclusive culture. In 2007, the Firm commenced a formal diversity initiative to ensure it had the policies and practices in place to enable it to recruit widely, retain the best people and promote equitably regardless of a person’s race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Firm leaders actively participate on Firm committees governing recruitment, talent management and joint initiatives with clients, all of which support diversity and inclusion goals for the Firm and the broader legal profession. Globally, regional section leaders incorporate diversity goals into their annual business plans.
The Firm is clearly diverse globally, and in the United States White & Case is recognized as one of the most diverse law firms based on criteria applied to lawyers located in its U.S. offices. The Firm was ranked first in
The American Lawyer’s
Diversity Scorecard for three consecutive years, 2014–2016. The ranking was based on each preceding year’s data for approximately 200 of the largest and highest-grossing law firms in the United States. The Firm also received a 100 percent rating for eight consecutive years from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index beginning in 2009 for its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employee inclusive policies and practices. Beginning in 2013, the Firm was honored for four consecutive years in the
International Financial Law Review’s
Euromoney Women in Business Law Awards as Best International Firm for Talent Management for the Firm’s Global Women’s Initiative.
Enduring culture
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GLOBAL PARTNER MEETING WASHINGTON, D.C., 2012
Partners presenting and receiving a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Firm. Front row (left to right) recipients: Raphaël Richard accepting award for Gilles Peigney, Eberhard Meincke, Sean Geary and George Crozer. Back row (left to right) presenters: Markus Hauptmann, Eric Berg and Philip Stopford.

Beyond that, the Firm is constantly adjusting its organizational structure and the ways it does business to bind everyone in the Firm more closely together. The Firm’s regional sections, global practices, industry and interest groups and, importantly, global client teams enable the Firm’s lawyers to interact with each other more regularly and to work together effectively and efficiently across offices and borders.
Technological developments continue to change the ways in which law firms practice law, and White & Case is committed to being a leader in the use of technology to improve the quality and efficiency of its legal services for the benefit of both itself and its clients. The Firm is equally committed to using technology to help foster and preserve its collegial and collaborative culture.
If DuPratt White and George Case could be at the Firm today, they would see a White & Case that is global in reach, thoroughly multicultural—both in its ethnic composition and in attitude—and diverse by almost any measure. Its lawyers relish the opportunity to work in other countries and actively enjoy absorbing and working with other cultures. They are collegial, collaborative and supportive of one another. They believe the entrepreneurial spirit of the Firm is one of its most endearing and enduring characteristics. They have a strong sense of stewardship of both the Firm and its culture, wanting to pass on an even better firm to the generations that will follow them.