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&lt;p&gt;David Lat, gadfly, gossipeur and all-around alpha blogstar, also writes a semimonthly column for &lt;i&gt;The New York Observer&lt;/i&gt;, the pink paper that is not &lt;i&gt;The Financial Times&lt;/i&gt;. In his debut column, Lat does some hardcore shoe leather reporting to uncover who this year&#39;s &quot;It&quot;&amp;nbsp;law firms are. (This apparently entailed taking the subway and talking to a few smokers standing outside of local law schools.)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Reading the column, I felt that I&#39;d come across these firms before. Oh right. &quot;It&quot; firms and the elite of the Vault Top 100 overlap: no surprise there. But how do law students&#39; perceptions, as uncovered by Lat&#39;s &quot;it&quot; firm investigation, compare to &quot;the buzz&quot; among practicing lawyers who took our 2007 Associate Survey? A quick &amp;amp; superficial look: &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Firm: &lt;b&gt;Wachtell Lipton Rosen &amp;amp; Katz&lt;/b&gt; (Vault&#39;s No. 1 for prestige)&lt;br&gt;Lat learns: &quot;The most prestigious&quot;&lt;br&gt;Vault Buzz: &quot;Far and away the gold standard&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Firm: &lt;b&gt;Cravath, Swaine &amp;amp; Moore&lt;/b&gt; (No. 2)&lt;br&gt;Lat learns: &quot;White-shoe and WASP-y&quot;&lt;br&gt;Vault Buzz: &quot;Pretentious but rightfully so&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Firm: &lt;b&gt;Latham &amp;amp; Watkins&lt;/b&gt; (No. 8)&lt;br&gt;Lat learns: &quot;California firms are perceived as less hierarchical&quot;&lt;br&gt;Vault Buzz: &quot;A bit like Degrassi&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Firm: &lt;b&gt;Davis Polk &amp;amp; Wardwell&lt;/b&gt; (No. 5)&lt;br&gt;Lat learns: &quot;I&#39;ve heard they have good-looking associates&quot;&lt;br&gt;Vault Buzz: &quot;Perfect in every way&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Firm: &lt;b&gt;Cleary Gottlieb Steen &amp;amp; Hamilton&lt;/b&gt; (No. 7)&lt;br&gt;Lat learns: &quot;A quirky, pleasingly academic atmosphere&quot;&lt;br&gt;Vault Buzz: &quot;Charmed elite&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Firm: &lt;b&gt;Debevoise &amp;amp; Plimpton&lt;/b&gt; (No. 12 )&lt;br&gt;Lat learns: &quot;We&#39;re Big Law but we&#39;re nice&quot;&lt;br&gt;Vault Buzz: &quot;Best of the NYC white shoe firms&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Verdict: no real discord between the perceptions, although, presumably Degrassi, like all junior high schools, is intensely hierarchical. I&#39;m sure as well that Latham would chafe at being labeled as &quot;Californian.&quot; The firm&#39;s largest office is in New York and it is a very self-consciously &quot;global&quot; operation, whatever its roots. Another quibble with the piece: Wachtell did not &quot;recently&quot; surpass Cravath in Vault&#39;s prestige rankings, unless five years ago is &quot;recently.&quot; Otherwise, it was an amusing glance at the state of law student opinion&amp;#8212;and one that reinforced our own findings (or perpetuated a silly pecking order based on the dubious concept of &quot;prestige&quot;). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;However, Lat&#39;s piece gets generally savaged by the vitriolic abovethelaw commentariat, e.g.: &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Agree with those who say this article sucked. Wachtell, Cravath, Davis Polk, Latham, and Debevoise are &quot;it&quot; law firms this season? Wait, wait . . . I can do this too: The &quot;it&quot; I-banks this season are Goldman, Blackstone, Lehman, and JPMC. For accountants, the &quot;it&quot; firms are PWC, Deloitte, E&amp;amp;Y, and KPMG. And the &quot;it&quot; colas this season are Coke and Pepsi!&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Really, Lat, you&#39;re going to put Vault out of business!&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Pretty funny, but I think beside the point: the piece was published in the &lt;i&gt;New York Observer,&lt;/i&gt; not &lt;i&gt;The American Lawyer.&lt;/i&gt; I imagine that, unlike the obsessives who roam the comments sections of law blogs, most of the intended audience of Lat&#39;s article have no opinion whatever about these firms&amp;#8212;and are surely healthier for it.&lt;/p&gt;

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